Filed under: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin, Big 10
When the times change, there are always signs. It was clear that country music was no longer the music Hank Williams gave his life for when words like "Honda" and "sippy cup" started showing up in its lyrics, for instance.In Monday's Five-Step Drop I pointed out how right now six of the top 18 quarterbacks in pass efficiency play in the Big Ten. It got me to wondering if we've ever seen a time when there were as many good quarterbacks in the Big Ten as there are right now.
I immediately thought of the Drew Brees-Tom Brady overlap in the late 1990s. One of the reasons Tom Brady wasn't highly regarded coming out of Michigan was because he played in the shadow of Brees, who was putting up ridiculous numbers at Purdue. Brady's deadly accuracy was on full display, but Brees was out-passing him by more than a thousand yards.
The rest of the league's quarterbacks in 1999 included future NFL participants Kurt Kittner, Kevin Thompson, Brooks Bollinger, and Antwaan Randle El, who many people don't even know was a quarterback in college. I wouldn't trade those four for numbers three through six in the current Big Ten signal-caller hierarchy, though.
To find a similar embarrassment of riches requires going back a quarter century to 1985. That year, Iowa's Chuck Long was the Heisman runner-up. Other league quarterbacks that season included NFL starters Jim Harbaugh, Jim Everett, Mike Tomczak, and Jack Trudeau. Minnesota's Rickey Foggie never played in the NFL, but he was sure fun to watch and is fondly remembered by those Gophers fans who haven't yet given their Saturdays over to playing Farmville. The rest of the league's quarterbacks weren't quite as notable, but even so, that's a list of heavyweights.
It seems doubtful that there are five future NFL starters playing quarterback in the Big Ten right now like there were in 1985, but this level of across-the-board performance only comes along once a generation or so. Enjoy it while it lasts because, like football season itself, it won't last long enough.
Right. The games.
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