I Hate You, John Crist: Was Herschel's 1981 really better than Cam's 2010?

I’ll be covering football for the first time in a while today, as I’m off to Gainesville for the annual Orange & Blue Debut spring game.

Alongside our Florida beat writer, Andrew Olson, my assignment is the two-way battle — or maybe three-way, depending on whether or not incumbent Luke Del Rio is still in the mix — at quarterback between Feleipe Franks and Kyle Trask.

Because I covered Pro Day for the Gators last year, not the spring game, this will be my first time seeing Franks and Trask up close. Based on everyone I’ve talked to around the program, Franks is the high-upside option. Trask is more of the high-floor variety. Of course, I want to figure out for myself if this is indeed the case.

UF is coming off back-to-back SEC East titles despite getting horrid play at QB for the majority of the last two years. With so much top-flight talent departing on D recently, presumably that can’t continue.

Here are some of my favorite comments from this past week. We finally revealed the winner of our March Madness-style bracket challenge.

My column this week on Pro Day at LSU came to one obvious conclusion: The Tigers have unachieved and been outcoached recently.

Leonard Fournette is one of the best tailback prospects to come into the NFL in years. Jamal Adams has a chance to be the highest-drafted safety in history. While both were tremendous performers, lack of team success means they weren’t transcendent.

In addition to Fournette and Adams, perhaps seven or eight more Bayou Bengals will hear their names called on draft weekend. Only SEC West rival Alabama had more players at the Scouting Combine last month, so it’s safe to say that talent isn’t the issue in Baton Rouge. Something else has held the program back.

The easy answer is former coach Les Miles, who won a national championship early in his tenure — and still deserves praise for doing so — but left a lot of wins on the table before ultimately being shown the door.

Now it’s up to Ed Orgeron to keep the pipeline of 4- and 5-star recruits flowing. His first signing day at LSU in February was indeed a hit.

However, as Pro Day suggested, it takes more than an assembly line of size and speed to win at this level consistently. Miles refused to evolve on offense. He couldn’t develop a passer. His game-day decisions were maddening.

Without a doubt, everyone loves Orgeron. He’s a Louisiana native. He’s an easy-to-drink cocktail of unbridled enthusiasm and infectious energy. He’s an easy sell for both the good-ole boys on the bayou and the 4.4 kids littered across the Pelican State. This team needed fresh blood, and Coach O has provided it thus far.

Nevertheless, he doesn’t need to recruit better than Miles. But he needs to win better. He’s admitted to making his fair share of mistakes while at Ole Miss, but it remains to be seen if a more mature Orgeron is also a more successful Orgeron.

Him getting this job was a feel-good story. However, it takes more than a familiar accent to get the Tigers back into the national-title hunt.

Herschel Walker emerged victorious in our three-week tournament to determine the greatest single-season performance in SEC history.

To be fair, the championship round was a bit of a buzz kill. The ideal matchup probably would have been Walker against Derrick Thomas, but Thomas was eliminated in the Final Four by another Alabama product, Amari Cooper.

Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

On the other side of the semi-final round, Walker escaped Cam Newton (above). Both of them are conference legends by any reasonable measure, although their résumés don’t have a lot in common — as you suggested. Walker was similarly unstoppable for three straight seasons, while Newton only had one year to leave a lasting impression.

Walker set league records for carries, yards rushing and rushing touchdowns as a sophomore in 1981, but was that necessarily his most memorable campaign? He went home with more hardware as a freshman in ’80 and then again as a junior in ’82.

When Walker burst on the scene in 1980, he was like nothing anyone had ever seen before. He led Georgia to its last national championship.

Statistically, Walker wasn’t quite as dominant in 1982. But he finally claimed the Heisman Trophy, which felt a bit like a lifetime achievement award at the time. He had finished third and second, respectively, the prior two seasons.

Newton, on the other hand, put together a complete performance for Auburn in 2010. As an individual, he won the Heisman Trophy. As a team, the Tigers went undefeated and took the national title. There was no footage left on the cutting-room floor. He was a comet streaking across the sky who came and went too quickly.

I have a hard time disagreeing with your premise here. In terms of career achievements, Walker is likely the standard by which everyone in this conference should be measured. For three years, he was electric.

That being said, when it comes to single-season dominance, my vote goes to Newton. I didn’t have a say in the final outcome, though.

For pure arm strength, there’s no reason to question Fitzgerald. He can spin it with enough RPMs whenever necessary.

Still, he has a way to go when it comes to using his arm effectively. As you highlighted, he threw erratically during the early portion of 2016. While he improved down the stretch, he’s far from a finished product as a passer.

Mississippi State’s air attack was vastly different a season ago then it had been in 2015. Dak Prescott was asked to incorporate a lot more pro-style reads and throws as a senior than he had been as a junior, and his success in doing so is partially responsible for him making such a smooth transition to the Dallas Cowboys as a rookie.

But with Fitzgerald taking over as a first-year starter, coach Dan Mullen appeared to dumb things down again. That’s not necessarily a knock on Fitzgerald. Arguably no position requires experience more than quarterback.

Especially the first few weeks, so many of Fitzgerald’s throws were predetermined or required no more than a single read.

With Fitzgerald blossoming into a dual-threat monster — he’s already a more devastating runner than Prescott ever was — there’s a lot of excitement in Starkville. The Bulldogs have a shot at being sneaky good in the West this year.

He still needs a lot of help, though. There hasn’t been a reliable ball carrier week in and week out for this offense in too long. The receiving corps dropped a stunning amount of passes most of last season. The offensive line also leaves a lot to be desired. Fitzgerald’s running masked so many problems.

Accurate passes tend to be caught. On-time passes tend to be caught. In-rhythm passes tend to be caught. Sure, every now and then a wideout is all thumbs despite the ball hitting him right in the numbers. It happens.

What Fitzgerald must put on display as a signal caller is consistency. Once he does, Mullen can make the offense more Prescott-like.

John Crist is the senior writer for Saturday Down South, a member of the FWAA and a voter for the Heisman Trophy. Send him an e-mail, like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.