mr marcus
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2013 College Football Thread (Realer than Real Deal Holyfield -->S/O Craftsy)
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by gunna get it,
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Garrett Gilbert needs to retire.
5 picks
5 picks
calibeebee
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Most athletic TE in the game, bleedat
Trey Bantz
formerly trey ohh five
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Exactly. People need to understand that the University of Miami=/=Florida State University. It's like comparing apples and oranges...
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West Virginia Displays Art of Quarterbacking
In grade school, Geno Smith impressed his art teachers by capturing the smallest of details in his work. Smith uses those observation skills to lead West Virginia.
By TIM ROHAN
Published: September 28, 2012
From across the room, the teacher heard 3-year-old Geno Smith read a children’s book aloud.
“Once upon a time, there was a little boy ...” Smith began, mimicking his grandmother’s bouncing intonation, sureness in his voice. Her colorful stories often started that way, the same as when she read to him, cradling him on her knee, conditioning his imagination.
Now seeing the pictures, conjuring his own rendition of the words, Smith announced a new tale proudly. The teacher hurried over, alarmed by the story’s elaborate details. She grabbed the book and learned the truth: the young boy could not read yet. He had made it all up.
A visionary, he was called. After taking an intelligence test, he was labeled gifted. If his mother wished, Smith could have skipped a grade. She decided against it, preferring he mature with his peers — a notion that did not go as planned, considering Smith often grew bored after finishing his schoolwork faster than most of his classmates.
“His visions of things have always been beyond his years,” Tracey Sellers said of her son, who is now West Virginia’s quarterback and a serious Heisman Trophy contender for the ninth-ranked Mountaineers (3-0), who host No. 25 Baylor (3-0) on Saturday.
Sellers gave birth to Geno at 17, and until he turned 4, they lived in Miami with her mother, Mosetta Bratton. Bratton watched Geno during the day, while Sellers finished her schooling. In those early years, Bratton “raised all of us,” Sellers said, “because we were young.”
Grouped with other students classified as gifted, Smith was taught an advanced curriculum emphasizing creativity and the arts. He wrote stories and poetry, acted in the school’s production of “The Nutcracker” and competed in chess tournaments. In fifth grade, he won an oratorical contest reciting work by the poet Langston Hughes. But he enjoyed sketching cartoon characters the most.
A critic and an ally, Smith’s grandmother exhibited his artwork on the refrigerator. She expected quality in whatever he did, but displayed anything he made.
With an impressive portfolio by seventh grade, Smith was admitted to Norland Middle School’s magnet program, which dedicated two hours a day to arts instruction. There, Smith thrived, drawing with pencils and charcoal. Painting with pastels and acrylic paints required touch, foresight and patience. Minor mistakes could nullify hours of work. No matter what tools he employed, he was a perfectionist.
“He was an extremely talented student with a natural drawing ability,” Gerald Obregon wrote in an e-mail. For two years, he and another teacher, Linda Atkinson, were Smith’s art instructors. Obregon added: “The quality of his drawings was more advanced than your average 13-, 14-year-old. It was actually on par with a college freshman in art school.”
Smith’s observation skills were particularly profound; he could capture the subtleties and emotions of the human face, Atkinson said. He drew details that some older artists overlooked or lacked the skill to portray. What jumped out were his characters’ eyes, which seemed lifelike.
But as high school neared, Smith left assignments unfinished, rarely interacting with his teachers.
“His priorities were different,” Obregon said. At about that time, Smith won back-to-back youth football championship games played in the Orange Bowl. Soon, Smith passed on his admission to the New World School of the Arts to play football at Miramar High School.
Briefly, football had served as an extracurricular activity, but now the field was his canvas. When Smith was 9, his uncle Antwan Sellers took him to the park while his mother worked.
Sellers, with knowledge gleaned from watching YouTube videos of Tom Brady, instructed Smith on his footwork, the proper way to drop back, hand off and roll out. Smith’s long, lean build lent itself to playing quarterback. From then, Smith obsessed about the details the position required.
His mother, however, insisted he manage his personal life before those of his sport. Sellers demanded a tidy room and a made bed. Smith was required to perform a number of household chores, and Sellers screened his friends, making sure they were of solid character.
Smith’s grandmother saved the newspaper clippings detailing his athletic exploits, but critiqued him as well, according to Sellers, saying things like: “You did good, but you stayed in the pocket too long. Get out the pocket!”
This helped her grandson develop an exacting nature. “If it’s not right, I’m not just going to leave it alone,” Smith said. “I want things to be right and be perfect.” With football, as in his art, the result needed to be “exactly the way you wanted it to come out, or how you’ve seen it in your mind.”
Smith started for four years at Miramar.
“His demeanor never changed,” said his coach, Damon Cogdell, who once suspended Smith for being late to practice, and pushed him to become a leader. “I could chew him out and bark at him, and some kids they would go in a shell. He never did, just stayed up, firm and high.”
In high school, when Smith’s mind wandered, he doodled cartoons and football players, said Stedman Bailey, who played wide receiver at Miramar and now plays at West Virginia.
Obregon said that Smith’s choosing football over the arts “doesn’t mean that his artistic journey is over yet.”
Football offered a more immediate gratification. When it came to college, the probability of playing time helped Smith choose West Virginia over Louisiana State and Alabama. He sat his freshman year behind Jarrett Brown, a fifth-year senior.
Smith had expected to be overwhelmed by the pace of the college game. Quite the opposite: everyone else appeared to be stuck in slow motion, he said. He thought to himself: this game isn’t really as hard as people make it seem to be.
But in Miami, his grandmother’s health was becoming a concern. By November of that year, her kidneys were failing.
Smith started as a sophomore in 2010, and led the Mountaineers to nine victories. When Coach Dana Holgorsen arrived in 2011 with his Air Raid offense, Smith threw for 4,385 yards, fourth most in the country. The Air Raid — predicated on matching a dozen route combinations to get receivers in open space — required a quarterback with a certain mental capacity, Holgorsen said. At Miramar, Smith had designed his own plays. Now, some opponents begged Smith to ease up. On a given snap, Smith read defenses, forecast which receivers would be open, felt pressure, counted time using an internal clock, faked to the options he knew were futile and found an open receiver and led him to an empty pocket of grass.
“On the field, he’s visualizing,” his mother said. “It’s like a puzzle, his masterpiece.”
His grandmother, though, was not fit enough to watch him in person. Bratton was treated with dialysis, and her health prevented her from traveling. Then, in January, West Virginia was set to play in the Orange Bowl against Clemson, and his grandmother felt well enough to attend.
Eight months later, she died. Smith spoke at her funeral and urged his family to stay strong with their matriarch gone. At some point, this kind of maturity became typical of Smith. “As a man, you have to do those things,” he said.
In January, with her in the stands, Smith had played the game of his life in the Orange Bowl. He threw for 6 touchdowns and 407 yards. West Virginia won, 70-33, and afterward Smith leapt into Bratton’s arms, hugged her and kissed her.
For Bratton — who had nurtured his imagination, adored his art and been his biggest fan — it was the confirmation she never needed: in football or in art, he would surpass her expectations.
Into the night, sureness in her voice, she had shouted: “I knew it! I knew it!”
In grade school, Geno Smith impressed his art teachers by capturing the smallest of details in his work. Smith uses those observation skills to lead West Virginia.
By TIM ROHAN
Published: September 28, 2012
From across the room, the teacher heard 3-year-old Geno Smith read a children’s book aloud.
“Once upon a time, there was a little boy ...” Smith began, mimicking his grandmother’s bouncing intonation, sureness in his voice. Her colorful stories often started that way, the same as when she read to him, cradling him on her knee, conditioning his imagination.
Now seeing the pictures, conjuring his own rendition of the words, Smith announced a new tale proudly. The teacher hurried over, alarmed by the story’s elaborate details. She grabbed the book and learned the truth: the young boy could not read yet. He had made it all up.
A visionary, he was called. After taking an intelligence test, he was labeled gifted. If his mother wished, Smith could have skipped a grade. She decided against it, preferring he mature with his peers — a notion that did not go as planned, considering Smith often grew bored after finishing his schoolwork faster than most of his classmates.
“His visions of things have always been beyond his years,” Tracey Sellers said of her son, who is now West Virginia’s quarterback and a serious Heisman Trophy contender for the ninth-ranked Mountaineers (3-0), who host No. 25 Baylor (3-0) on Saturday.
Sellers gave birth to Geno at 17, and until he turned 4, they lived in Miami with her mother, Mosetta Bratton. Bratton watched Geno during the day, while Sellers finished her schooling. In those early years, Bratton “raised all of us,” Sellers said, “because we were young.”
Grouped with other students classified as gifted, Smith was taught an advanced curriculum emphasizing creativity and the arts. He wrote stories and poetry, acted in the school’s production of “The Nutcracker” and competed in chess tournaments. In fifth grade, he won an oratorical contest reciting work by the poet Langston Hughes. But he enjoyed sketching cartoon characters the most.
A critic and an ally, Smith’s grandmother exhibited his artwork on the refrigerator. She expected quality in whatever he did, but displayed anything he made.
With an impressive portfolio by seventh grade, Smith was admitted to Norland Middle School’s magnet program, which dedicated two hours a day to arts instruction. There, Smith thrived, drawing with pencils and charcoal. Painting with pastels and acrylic paints required touch, foresight and patience. Minor mistakes could nullify hours of work. No matter what tools he employed, he was a perfectionist.
“He was an extremely talented student with a natural drawing ability,” Gerald Obregon wrote in an e-mail. For two years, he and another teacher, Linda Atkinson, were Smith’s art instructors. Obregon added: “The quality of his drawings was more advanced than your average 13-, 14-year-old. It was actually on par with a college freshman in art school.”
Smith’s observation skills were particularly profound; he could capture the subtleties and emotions of the human face, Atkinson said. He drew details that some older artists overlooked or lacked the skill to portray. What jumped out were his characters’ eyes, which seemed lifelike.
But as high school neared, Smith left assignments unfinished, rarely interacting with his teachers.
“His priorities were different,” Obregon said. At about that time, Smith won back-to-back youth football championship games played in the Orange Bowl. Soon, Smith passed on his admission to the New World School of the Arts to play football at Miramar High School.
Briefly, football had served as an extracurricular activity, but now the field was his canvas. When Smith was 9, his uncle Antwan Sellers took him to the park while his mother worked.
Sellers, with knowledge gleaned from watching YouTube videos of Tom Brady, instructed Smith on his footwork, the proper way to drop back, hand off and roll out. Smith’s long, lean build lent itself to playing quarterback. From then, Smith obsessed about the details the position required.
His mother, however, insisted he manage his personal life before those of his sport. Sellers demanded a tidy room and a made bed. Smith was required to perform a number of household chores, and Sellers screened his friends, making sure they were of solid character.
Smith’s grandmother saved the newspaper clippings detailing his athletic exploits, but critiqued him as well, according to Sellers, saying things like: “You did good, but you stayed in the pocket too long. Get out the pocket!”
This helped her grandson develop an exacting nature. “If it’s not right, I’m not just going to leave it alone,” Smith said. “I want things to be right and be perfect.” With football, as in his art, the result needed to be “exactly the way you wanted it to come out, or how you’ve seen it in your mind.”
Smith started for four years at Miramar.
“His demeanor never changed,” said his coach, Damon Cogdell, who once suspended Smith for being late to practice, and pushed him to become a leader. “I could chew him out and bark at him, and some kids they would go in a shell. He never did, just stayed up, firm and high.”
In high school, when Smith’s mind wandered, he doodled cartoons and football players, said Stedman Bailey, who played wide receiver at Miramar and now plays at West Virginia.
Obregon said that Smith’s choosing football over the arts “doesn’t mean that his artistic journey is over yet.”
Football offered a more immediate gratification. When it came to college, the probability of playing time helped Smith choose West Virginia over Louisiana State and Alabama. He sat his freshman year behind Jarrett Brown, a fifth-year senior.
Smith had expected to be overwhelmed by the pace of the college game. Quite the opposite: everyone else appeared to be stuck in slow motion, he said. He thought to himself: this game isn’t really as hard as people make it seem to be.
But in Miami, his grandmother’s health was becoming a concern. By November of that year, her kidneys were failing.
Smith started as a sophomore in 2010, and led the Mountaineers to nine victories. When Coach Dana Holgorsen arrived in 2011 with his Air Raid offense, Smith threw for 4,385 yards, fourth most in the country. The Air Raid — predicated on matching a dozen route combinations to get receivers in open space — required a quarterback with a certain mental capacity, Holgorsen said. At Miramar, Smith had designed his own plays. Now, some opponents begged Smith to ease up. On a given snap, Smith read defenses, forecast which receivers would be open, felt pressure, counted time using an internal clock, faked to the options he knew were futile and found an open receiver and led him to an empty pocket of grass.
“On the field, he’s visualizing,” his mother said. “It’s like a puzzle, his masterpiece.”
His grandmother, though, was not fit enough to watch him in person. Bratton was treated with dialysis, and her health prevented her from traveling. Then, in January, West Virginia was set to play in the Orange Bowl against Clemson, and his grandmother felt well enough to attend.
Eight months later, she died. Smith spoke at her funeral and urged his family to stay strong with their matriarch gone. At some point, this kind of maturity became typical of Smith. “As a man, you have to do those things,” he said.
In January, with her in the stands, Smith had played the game of his life in the Orange Bowl. He threw for 6 touchdowns and 407 yards. West Virginia won, 70-33, and afterward Smith leapt into Bratton’s arms, hugged her and kissed her.
For Bratton — who had nurtured his imagination, adored his art and been his biggest fan — it was the confirmation she never needed: in football or in art, he would surpass her expectations.
Into the night, sureness in her voice, she had shouted: “I knew it! I knew it!”
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I blacked out last night but didnt forget Geno throwing for almost 700 yards. Unreal
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Amerson
images dont work unless your a member of the original board you got it from
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Fixed.
Randy chose Jacory over Geno.|I Hindsight 20/20
Randy chose Jacory over Geno.|I Hindsight 20/20
jhawk826
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Although Ole Miss had been wearing them for a couple years now, I really didn't notice that they were wearing the Confederate alternate uniform until Bomani Jones pointed it out. They really love their rebellious history at that school.
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Death row !
RKO, Cincy
Like seeing the bearcats do well no doubt
OU, OSU, UC undefeated
Yes sir! Ohio football
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Idk if yall saw it but some trainers need to be fired for sparty. Gholston clearly got knocked out completely and even says so to the trainers on the sideline. They talking about he had the wind knocked outtve him. When have you ever got the wind knocked out after you get neck rolled? He was on Miller completely motionless and they let him go back in the game next series. To make matters worse they didnt even immobilize him to check. They just let him get up asap
Yup def saw that, son was knocked out...same thing basically happened in the USF-FSU game where B.J. Daniels tried to get up and run to the sideline and stumbled and fell over, even though he came back in and lead a td drive
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Ugly win for my noles in Tampa but I'll take it
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Geno Smith 
Johnny Football That kid is gonna be great in a few years.
Johnny Football
That kid is gonna be great in a few years.
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ol' geno is going to put up equal, if not greater, numbers against texas' secondary. 
they're going to give my boys a sound drubbin' next week. good luck texas!!!
they're going to give my boys a sound drubbin' next week. good luck texas!!!
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They look like just a grey version of their normal uniforms...thats a little bit of a reach my dude
But my Vols. Bray gon cost Dooley his job
jumpmanfromdabay
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I have been a big supporter of Jeff Tedford but after what I saw yesterday he needs to go after this season
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I'm worried but I am not at the same time... The Texas D-Line is beastlyol' geno is going to put up equal, if not greater, numbers against texas' secondary.they're going to give my boys a sound drubbin' next week. good luck texas!!!
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do you watch football or just throw out dumb ****?
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i said it last year in this thread, they should fire him before they moved back into the stadium his time was done there. cal recruits to well, puts to many guys in the NFL to be a AVG team the past few years in the pac12. from what i read tho cal is broke and dont have many big boosters so it could he hard to pay his huge buy out
arkansas
Gtech
Cal
vols
should all be looking for new HC
calibeebee
Supporter
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I agree, I feel he is overrated as well. People were saying he's getting drafted 1st round and I don't see that from him in the Oregon game. He dropped a bunch of passes with minimal contact. You gotta be able to secure the football, hang on to that **** if balls are getting to you. Can't afford to be losing balls like that if you go to the L.
I'm not saying he's a bad player. He is extremely talented and one of the fastest receivers in the nation. He's also playing for a terrible team. I'm just saying from the 2 or 3 games I've seen him play, he's overrated in my opinion and nowhere near 1st round material
calibeebee
Supporter
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he did have a very impressive TD catch in the 4th when Tuel came in. Was thrown into double coverage and he got sandwiched between two ducks. Jumped up, got it, held on. Hat tipped
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I'm of the opinion the overall amount of suck Wilson is surrounded by rubs off on him. WSU is brutally awful in every facet of football right now.
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thats part of it but still look at his numbers last year and what he has done so far this year. he still puts up numbers
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USF WR Chris Dunkley arrested, suspended indefinitely
By Ryan Bass, Bright House Sports Network
Last Updated: Sunday, September 30, 2012 @ 09:12PM
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TAMPA --
It's been a tough 24 hours for USF wide receiver Chris Dunkley.
Dunkley was arrested on campus hours after USF's 30-17 loss to Florida State and charged with a misdemeanor count of domestic violence battery, and now the sophomore wide receiver has been suspended indefinitely from the team.
According to USF, Dunkley will not be involved in any team-related activities or functions.
“Our players have an obligation to conduct themselves in an appropriate manner on and off the field," USF head coach Skip Holtz said in a release. "Due to the serious nature of this matter, we have suspended Chris indefinitely from all team activities.”
The ex-Gator was arrested just before 11:30 p.m. on campus, and booked at 1:44 a.m, according to a police report. The 21-year-old sophomore was still in jail as of Sunday at 10 a.m.
According to a police report, Dunkley was charged for an incident with his girlfriend on Sept. 21. The report says Dunkley and his girlfriend had an argument, and at one point, things became physical.
The Pahokee high alum has played in all four games for USF this season, catching four balls for 93 yards, 52 of which came during the fourth quarter of USF's 32-31 come-from-behind win over Nevada.
By Ryan Bass, Bright House Sports Network
Last Updated: Sunday, September 30, 2012 @ 09:12PM
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TAMPA --
It's been a tough 24 hours for USF wide receiver Chris Dunkley.
Dunkley was arrested on campus hours after USF's 30-17 loss to Florida State and charged with a misdemeanor count of domestic violence battery, and now the sophomore wide receiver has been suspended indefinitely from the team.
According to USF, Dunkley will not be involved in any team-related activities or functions.
“Our players have an obligation to conduct themselves in an appropriate manner on and off the field," USF head coach Skip Holtz said in a release. "Due to the serious nature of this matter, we have suspended Chris indefinitely from all team activities.”
The ex-Gator was arrested just before 11:30 p.m. on campus, and booked at 1:44 a.m, according to a police report. The 21-year-old sophomore was still in jail as of Sunday at 10 a.m.
According to a police report, Dunkley was charged for an incident with his girlfriend on Sept. 21. The report says Dunkley and his girlfriend had an argument, and at one point, things became physical.
The Pahokee high alum has played in all four games for USF this season, catching four balls for 93 yards, 52 of which came during the fourth quarter of USF's 32-31 come-from-behind win over Nevada.
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