After Troy Smith and the Ohio State Buckeyes lost to the Florida Gators Monday night, it all has come to me. Troy Smith will be mediocre in the Sunday league, at best. But that isn’t anything new for draft experts like Mel Kiper Jr.
Even though Smith continued the Heisman hex, he still should be considered as one of the best college quarterbacks ever. But will he be one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks anytime during his career? I say no.
Everyone saw how he played Monday. And everyone blames his line for the failure, and I would agree to some extent. But the fact is, unless Smith has an offensive line like he had throughout his career at Ohio State, he won’t be anything more than a third stringer at the next level.
And for me to write this about one of my role models hurts. I am an Ohio State fan that is infatuated about the university and the sports programs offered there. I still can not act like everything will be okay with Smith when he is playing for one of the 32 professional teams next year. Because it won’t.
The main problem I saw with Smith had nothing to do with the game. It had to do with his post game interview. Everyone is saying he said the right things, just like his coach Jim Tressel. I could not disagree more. He said, “If this if the biggest failure in my life then I will have it pretty good.” That statement proves to me that winning is not very high up on his list.
Every defeat Troy will encounter at the next level should hurt more than the BCS championship game. It will not be like college where you play in a game then go back to your studies. The game will be his life and if he loses it will be a failure. And if he has that passive attitude on the sidelines like he did Monday, he will be switching teams like a bandwaggoner.
And the way Smith played made it seem to me that winning the Heisman was good enough. I would be ripping my line, backs, and receivers a new one if my team was down by 3 touchdowns.
I also blame Smith for leaving the defense on the field for so long. The defense was on the field 3x more than the Florida defense. A team can’t win a championship like that.
When you are the quarterback you are the general. You command the troops. Smith was not commanding the troops, so the troops did what they wanted to do. That is also a perfectly good example of what a team shouldn’t do.
Everyone has also been giving credit to Florida’s defense. Why? All they had to do was run through a line that couldn’t have blocked a Junior Varsity team. So enough with the “Chomp.”
Because of the performance by the Buckeyes, and Troy Smith setting the pace for worst performances by a Heisman winner, Smith’s draft value has dropped. And saying that is pretty generous.
Smith was projected to go in the mid to late first round in this year’s draft. That was of course pre-BCS championship. In a chat on ESPN.com today, Mel Kiper Jr. said he would be lucky to go in the middle of the third round. And anyone who follows football knows that a couple million dollars just went down the tube.
Not that I am a draft expert, (by any stretch of the imagination) but Smith was probably going to drop to the later rounds of the first day unless he threw for 300, and put three balls in the end zone. All the NFL teams care about is the height of the quarterback. If they went by talent in college, Smith would most likely be a first round pick.
But it was great for the pro teams to see him play that way. It reassured the teams that he was not a Vince Young. Or for that matter, David Carr.
Smith will only be productive if his line is formed with All-Pro lineman. Can anyone dispute that? So if the teams like Houston or Cleveland pick him up, they just wasted a draft pick. Because if you pick Smith in this year’s draft, then you are planning on spending tens of millions of dollars to put up a line that will hold.
Like I said. I think Troy Smith is one of the best college quarterbacks of all time. He is definitely Ohio State’s best quarterback of all time. But he will be as productive as Craig Krenzel was when he entered the NFL. And that was very brief.
Smith will stay in the league long enough to make a couple million dollars. It is just too bad people don’t get aid to play in college. Because then no one would be able to afford him.