The Baldest Truth

Everybody loves a big-time college athlete who chooses Boolah! Boolah! Boolah! over moolah-moolah-moolah.

How loyal of him to stay in school with his buddies instead of wandering out into the cold, cruel world of professional sports. How noble. How heroic.

How shortsighted.

I have my doubts about Jimmy Clausen being good enough to star on Sundays. Nevertheless, if NFL scouts love the Notre Dame quarterback so much that he’ll be a top draft pick next April, he only has one intelligent choice.

Go pro, kid, go pro.

Clausen shouldn’t make the same $80 million mistake Sam Bradford did. He shouldn’t stay in school because it’s fun. I’d give the same advice to Washington QB Jake Locker and any other underclassman who is top-10 material.

They can have plenty of fun in the NFL. If they have to, they can buy fun. They should think about the primary purpose of college: To prepare a young person for life and for the profession he or she wants to enter when the keggers, study halls, hook-ups and final exams are finished.

Bradford is the cautionary tale of all cautionary tales. He probably would have been the first pick in last year’s draft but he decided to stay at Oklahoma because, he said, “My three years here have been probably three of the best years of my life.”

He added: “I really feel that there is no need to cut this experience short.”

Need, no. Reason, yes.

Through the end of last season, the University of Oklahoma experience did for Bradford exactly what it was supposed to do. As the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and a kid generally considered the best QB available, he surely would have received more money than eventual No. 1 pick Matthew Stafford did from the Lions ($41.7 million guaranteed, with a chance to earn as much as $78 million).

Instead, Sam Bradford is damaged goods.

The first shoulder injury, suffered in this season’s opener, probably didn’t hurt his stock for the 2010 draft too much.

When he went down hard on the shoulder again last week, however, it meant only two words to NFL teams:

Injury.

Prone.

Where will Bradford be drafted now? In the middle of the first round, where his guaranteed take probably would be around $10 million? In the second, where he’d be lucky to get half that? In the third, where seven-figure signing bonuses are rare? Later? It’s a distinct possibility, especially if he isn’t in top shape come Combine time in February.

Obviously, when it comes to risk-reward ratios, it’s foolish for a top-tier college football player to delay his pro career.

Yeah, but what about Tim Tebow? Few say he should have left Florida after leading the Gators to last season's mythical title. Apples and oranges, folks. NFL talent evaluators weren’t even sure he had pro QB skills. (In fact, some still aren’t.) Tebow had to return and prove he was worth the high pick and the big bucks.

As for Clausen, he gets lots of ink because he’s at Notre Dame. OK, but did anybody who watched the USC game really believe he was the best QB on the field?

Matt Barkley had better stats, made more big plays and didn’t misfire repeatedly at the end with the game on the line.

The Trojans are 5-0 in Barkley’s starts, 0-1 in the game he missed. He performed superbly at Ohio State and at Notre Dame - giving him two more signature victories in half a season than Clausen has had in three years.

Yet we seldom hear Barkley’s name in the Heisman discussion because he’s a freshman. Clausen, meanwhile, is a Golden Domer. Nuff said.

Reason No. 849 why the Heisman is a sham.

Anyway, if Clausen finishes strongly against the non-USC-type opponents on ND’s remaining schedule, he certainly will be projected as an early draft choice, maybe even No. 1.

If so, he should go.

Why come back for another year under Charlie Weis, whose tutelage neither improved Brady Quinn’s draft status nor made Quinn an instant NFL star?

Cash over co-eds. Sunday's dough over Saturday's show. Moolah over boolah.

Those are the simple economics of football, a violent business in which one play, one hit, one cheap shot, one accidental collision can put a serious dent in a future paycheck or even end a career entirely.

Read Mike Nadel's musings daily at TheBaldestTruth.com.

Heisman Trophy voters in 1973 and 1974 were so impressed with Walter Payton's achievements at Jackson State - where Sweetness set the NCAA scoring record, ran wild against every defense, passed for nearly 500 yards, booted field goals and extra points, returned kicks and, sources say, played trombone at halftime - that they shrugged and selected dozens of significantly less talented, far less accomplished players.

To recap: Payton arguably was the best ballcarrier of all time (as well as Mike Ditka's choice as greatest football player ever), yet he couldn’t wrest Heisman votes away from Woody Green and Gary Sheide.

Which pretty much tells us all we need to know about the sham that is the Heisman Trophy.

But wait - as the infomercial dudes like to say - there’s more!

One of my sportswriter friends dislikes college football, so he rarely watches it. Another occasionally catches highlights on TV but otherwise pretty much ignores the sport. OK, everybody doesn’t have to love - or even like - college football, right? Of course not, though it might be nice if folks with Heisman ballots at least pretend to care.

Another media mope I know who had a vote back in 1988 freely admitted he selected Steve Walsh over Barry Sanders because “I know Steve Walsh. I know his father. I don’t know Barry Sanders.”

A few years ago, a well-known sportswriter with a radio show invited callers to make his Heisman choice for him. The player who got the most love from listeners would get the check mark on the scribe’s ballot as the most outstanding college football player in the land.

Wait ... let’s get real here. More often than not, the Heisman Trophy does not go to the most outstanding college football player in the land.

It goes to the most-hyped quarterback or tailback for a high-ranked, major-conference team.

Defensive players? Forget about it. And don’t throw Charles Woodson in my face. The Michigan cornerback only won it in 1997 because he made sensational catches as a wide receiver. Had he not played both ways, he would have had about as much chance to out-hype QBs as I do to steal Angelina from Brad. (Still, Brad is weirdly jealous of me. Go figure.)

Small schools? Nope. Even after setting an NCAA record with 27 TD catches in 1984, Mississippi Valley State’s Jerry Rice drew a collective shrug from voters who understandably preferred Robbie Bosco and Greg Allen.

Historically black schools? No way. See: Payton, Walter.

Offensive linemen? Ha! There isn’t enough Winstrol and Durabolin in the world to get them in the discussion.

Great players on bad teams? Not since Paul Hornung. And he had the built-in advantage of being at Notre Dame in the ’50s.

Division II or Division III players? Now that's funny!

Despite its popularity among the masses, the Heisman Trophy is probably the least credible major award in all of sports because the balloting and the concept are so flawed. (Darn. There goes my invitation to join the Downtown Athletic Club.)

This season hasn’t even started and already “The Heisman Watch” is a fixture on the air, online and in print. What were we supposed to have been watching? The way Heisman candidates carry themselves on media day?

In its preview issue, Sports Illustrated ran a fold-out section topped with the screaming headline: “The Great Heisman Race.” Race? Although the piece had the likes of Oregon’s Jeremiah Masoli, Cal’s Jahvid Best and Penn State’s Daryll Clark in the mix, everybody knows the only way Tim Tebow, Sam Bradford or Colt McCoy won’t win the thing is if all three get caught playing Naked Gay Beer Pong at a Klan convention.

And to think, SI instead could have given us a centerfold featuring Pac-10 cheerleaders wearing only body paint and smiles. Sigh.

As with college football itself - in which the top-ranked preseason teams have a golden path to the Mythical Championship Game - the Heisman “race” strongly favors QBs who are hyped to the hilt months before the season’s first blown interference call.

Simply stated, the fix is in. As usual.

Were I a Heisman voter, I would do as much research as humanly possible ... and then I would select the very best left tackle or defensive end or safety: my very own little protest vote.

Or maybe I’d do no research at all and simply let my readers make the call for me.

Or maybe I’d just pick a guy I know personally. As long as he's a pass-throwing guy, of course.

Regardless of my method for choosing my winner, I wouldn't be making the Heisman Trophy any more of a crock than it already is.

Read more of Mike Nadel’s musings daily at TheBaldestTruth.com.