Gino Torretta Forfeits Heisman, Citing “Poor Football Skills”

CORAL GABLES — 1992 Heisman Trophy winner Gino Torretta held a surprise press conference on Wednesday in Coral Gables to announce that he would follow Reggie Bush’s lead in forfeiting his Heisman Trophy.

“This is, obviously, one of the toughest decisions of my life,” Torretta said while holding back tears. “But in light of the courage that Reggie showed, really adhering to the guidelines of who deserves the Heisman — and deserves is really the word that got me — I just thought I honestly wasn’t a good enough football player at any level to conscionably retain this trophy.”

Torretta then cited his 1992 statistics from a sheet of paper, seemingly expressing incredulity that anyone of his low caliber could win college football’s most prestigious award.

“I know we were a good team and all, but 19 touchdowns to seven interceptions? That’s less than a three-to-one ratio! Kellen Moore’s was 13-to-1 last year, and that dude didn’t even place!”

Indeed, after throwing 39 touchdowns and just three interceptions in 2009, Boise State’s Moore finished seventh. Torretta himself beat out San Diego State’s Marshall Faulk in 1992, a year in which Faulk ran for over 1600 yards and scored 15 touchdowns for the Aztecs.

John’s Especially Vague and Pusillanimous Predictions for Super Bowl XLIV

So we already heard from Tim (and, for that matter, from Michael Weinreb) some especially specific predictions for tonight’s game. Well, I’m not that audacious, but I feel compelled to give you my insights for the Super Bowl. As such, here are some predictions:

Unabated to the QB, Divisional Playoffs: And Then There Were Four…

“This is so true that we rarely confide in those who are better than we. Rather, we are more inclined to flee their society. Most often, on the other hand, we confess to those who are like us and who share our weaknesses. Hence we don’t want to improve ourselves or be bettered, for we should first have to be judged in default. We merely wish to be pitied and encouraged in the course we have chosen. In short, we should like, at the same time, to cease being guilty and yet not make the effort of cleansing ourselves…We lack the energy of evil as well as the energy of good.”

—Albert Camus

Heading into Conference Championship weekend, we’re gonna play a little game I like to call “Who deserves it more?” You see, fans have a tendency to exaggerate their own suffering in recalling agonizing defeats and the severe personal trauma inflicted upon them by their own, inescapable fandom.

And all of our final four can lay some claim to suffering. But which fan base has been hurt the most, and which deserves a Super Bowl title on its mantle the most?

Aught Lang Syne: Athletes of the Decade, Part I

You thought we were done, didn’t you? That we would stick to our promise to end by December 31? Please. We’ve still got two posts to go to determine the most important title of all: Athlete of the Decade.

In defining what exactly constituted the “Athlete of the Decade” in a sport, there’s a fine line between who is best and who is the most iconic. I tended toward the latter, which runs the risk of predicting how future historians remember the Aughts.

And a little wrinkle: The order in which I present the sports counts down to the Athlete of the Decade across sports. That is, the last sport I do will have the No. 1 Athlete of the Decade, the penultimate is the second-best across sports, and so on. Here are Nos. 6, 5, and 4.

Unabated to the QB, Week 10: What was Bill Belichick Thinking?

“I recognized no equals. I always considered myself more intelligent than everyone else, as I’ve told you, but also more sensitive and more skillful, a crack shot, an incomparable driver, a better lover.”

—Albert Camus, The Fall

Truth be told, I didn’t watch the Sunday Night game between the Patriots and Colts; I had “better things to do.” Now I kind of wished I had watched it, being that it was only the best game of this regular season and included one of the most stunning coaching decisions in NFL history.

Bill Belichick’s decision to go for it on 4^th-and-2 from his own 28 was no doubt surprising, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t rational, like any proper blindsiding from Survivor. Perhaps even more surprising has been the aftermath of the decision, where close to (if not) a majority of sportswriters have supported the decision. Joe Posnanski was behind it (obvs…if he weren’t, I wouldn’t be), citing The New York Times’s statistics. Three of the four guys on Around the Horn liked it, and the one who didn’t was Jay Mariotti, who defended his position by telling the others, “You’re idiots.” Most people in this Fanhouse roundtable supported it, too. Even Gregg Easterbrook defended it, but I don’t really count him as a sportswriter.

Of course, not everyone was behind the call. David Fleming at ESPN—who I had never heard of before—called it “uncharacteristically panicky,” a notion that seems to be rebutted by Charlie Weis saying it was likely planned. Mike Francesa thought it was moronic. And Rodney Harrison called it the dumbest decision Belichick had ever made, which I thought was ignorant of perspective.*