Twitter and Sports

This morning I woke up, turned on SportsCenter, and logged on to Twitter. This is what happened.

First thing is first, I saw that CBS announced their College Football All American 1st and 2nd teams. I didn't really look at them much, but one thing stood out. Tyrann Mathieu was on the first team for punt returner, which I suppose is understandable, but also for Defensive Back. And that is when I went off. What an absolute joke from CBS. Three of the four Second Teamers have better statistics than Mathieu. David Amerson, of North Carolina State, had eleven interception. ELEVEN! He was on the second team. How does someone with two interceptions and only 71 tackles get 1st team over Amerson? If CBS based their decision on the fact that he returned two punts for touchdowns, then its an absolute disgrace. There are many more candidates that deserved some recognition. At least more than Mathieu.*

I will admit that these could be homer picks, but the stats don't lie.

-David Garret, Kansas State. David Garret had 78 tackles on the #8 ranked Kansas State Wildcats. He also had two interceptions. He also had one interception for a touchdown. For those keeping track, that is seven more tackles than Mathieu and the same number of picks. Did Garrett have punt return statistics to back up his game as a defensive back? Probably not. But that is not what it is based on.

-Nigel Malone, Kansas State. The other side of the cornerback duo for Kansas State was Nigel Malone. He had 56 tackles on the year, which is 15 less than than Mathieu, but Malone had seven interceptions. That ranked him tied for second in the nation in interceptions.  Add in one pick six and you have a significant playmaker on the defense. If you hear him talk, he is one of the smartest players on the field. He knows exactly how to read quarterbacks, based on their reads and their positioning and timing. He deserves more recognition about what he did throughout the year.


I do realize that these are two of my team's guys, but their stats are awfully impressive. Lets dive deeper into the comparison between Nigel Malone and Tyrann Mathieu.

Mathieu had two interceptions this year. One was against Geno Smith, from West Virginia. The other was against a freshman from Florida, Jacoby Bissett. Those two quarterbacks accounted for only 4,184 yards and 27 touchdowns. That is an average of 2,092 yards per quarterback and 13.5 touchdowns per quarterback. Not very impressive.

Nigel Malone, on the other hand, had seven interceptions. He had two against T.J. Pryor, of Eastern Kentucky, one against Jacory Harris, from Miami, one returned for a touchdown against Seth Doege of Texas Tech, two against former #1 Landry Jones, from Oklahoma, and the final INT against Ryan Tannehill of Texas A&M. Those quarterbacks accounted for 15,812 yards and 122 touchdowns. That is an average of 3162 yards per quarterback and 24 touchdowns per quarterback. That is impressive.

The fact that this guy, Tyrann Mathieu, who also was suspended for one game due to being caught with synthetic marijuana (really good role model right?), is considered an All American defensive back, seems like a stretch to me. Give him the punt returner AA. He is electric. But to use that as a basis for determining the choices for Defensive back, which is what I believe happened, is atrocious.

And that is why I went off this morning on Twitter. There was also some garbage about Tim Tebow on SportsCenter, but I wont go into that one right now.