By Matt "Money" Smith
FOX Sports West and PRIME TICKET
MONEY ARCHIVE
Talk about a dichotomy.
With the announcement that QB Andrew Luck would be shunning at least $50 million guaranteed as the first overall pick in the 2011 NFL draft so he could return to Stanford for what will be his junior season, there is no middle position.
The newly galvanized Cardinal football fan base received what's really a pipe dream - a football miracle if you will - with the news, despite the fact that Jim Harbaugh is now headed for San Francisco.
On the flip side you have those who can't get their head around walking away from that sort of financial security, and of course fans of any team on Stanford's schedule in 2011 with the Pac-12 starting next season. The only two schools they'll avoid is new member Utah and Arizona State.
I understand Brady and Belichick have won multiple Super Bowls together, while Harbaugh and Luck had no titles to show for their efforts. But considering where Stanford was following the Walt Harris debacle, this might be the more impressive accomplishment. Just five years ago, Harbaugh was at the I-AA University of San Diego coaching up the Toreros in the Pioneer Football League when he got the call to resurrect a Stanford program that was the doormat of the Pac-10, coming off a one-win season that included losses to San Jose State and a 37-9 romp by Navy at home.
All Harbaugh did that first season in 2007 was pull off what very well might have been the most improbable victory in Pac-10 history when Tavita Pritchard threw that TD pass to mark Bradford with :49 left to snap USC's 35-game home win streak. While they won just eight games last year, the manner in which they crushed USC at the Coliseum, defeated Notre Dame on national television and had Toby Gerhart sitting in New York at the Heisman Trophy ceremony, many (myself included) were screaming that award belonged to him and not Mark Ingram, the program was certainly on the up and up.
Those who were around the program - and I was part of this conversation having called play-by-play for six of their games that season - all said the same thing. Andrew Luck is the best quarterback in college football. Sure Tim Tebow was completing a college football career that could be described as the most impressive in the history of the sport, but in terms of sheer talent that could be applied at the next level, we hadn't seen someone like Luck in a long, long time.
I think the loudest collective moan could be heard across Orange County and anywhere else the USC fan base is centralized. Luck absolutely carved up the Trojans at Stanford this year in what was the best game USC played this past season, even though it was a loss. He finished 20-of-24 for 285 yards and three TDs, including a perfect 3-for-3 on a seven-play drive with just 68 seconds on the clock that culminated with a 30-yard, game-winning field goal. He was no slouch in the 55-21 win the year prior, passing for a couple scores and rushing for 61 yards and another touchdown.
We need not remind the folks in Westwood what Luck and Harbaugh put on the Bruins this year. Following a loss at Kansas State, the UCLA home opener was a 35-0 laugher, after which head coach Rick Neuheisel was central in the most uncomfortable moment of the college football season, when he addressed the Rose Bowl crowd following his team getting embarrassed on the field just minutes before his pep talk.
The return of Luck certainly provides some warm fuzzies in a sport that was full of too many embarrassing stories this season.
Just excuse the fine folks here in Southern California if they're not feeling them.
Matt "Money" Smith can be heard Monday-Friday on The Petros and Money Show on FOX Sports Radio's KLAC-AM 570 from 3 pm to 7 pm (PT).
