AJ doesn’t just call the plays, he sets the tone the team emulates and he brings home championships.
McCarron Proves He’s The Best in The SEC Despite ALL SEC Rankings
By Larry Burton
Nobody wins a college football championship because their stats are better than any other team and no quarterback can come home with a championship ring just because he threw for more yardage than his competitors. You do those things by winning, there is no other way.
So when the SEC ranked their quarterbacks and AJ McCarron came in at third string, many fans, not just Alabama fans, shook their heads in disapproval. Making the case that either Aaron Murray or Johnny Manziel deserves to be ranked higher after the first three weeks of the season seems to be much easier now.
With just three weeks gone, both are losers while McCarron remains, cool, calm and collected as well as undefeated. While Manziel had more yardage and highlight moments in this past weekend’s match with McCarron, the simple truth of the matter was, he still lost, and in great part to his own mistakes.
I wonder how many of the voters that placed McCarron third would actually not choose him if they were forced to pick a quarterback to play in a championship game?
In Saturday’s game, McCarron threw for less yardage than Manziel, certainly rushed for less yardage than Manziel and in no way had a highlight reel moment of escaping an almost sure sack only to throw up a dead duck pass that was pulled in as if it were drawn up that way.
Instead, McCarron rallied his troops to keep the faith while being down 14-0, didn’t throw a bad ball all game long and made all the throws he was supposed to make to win the game. Unlike Manziel, he never placed his passes in any position of being intercepted while Manziel made two bad throws that were picked off and other throws that could have been.
Neither Manziel or Murray has ever played for a national championship and Murray has had the “choke” label throughout his college career and has still not shaken it with wins against ranked teams or winning when it mattered most.
AJ McCarron is not concerned with statistics, individual or awards or accolades. He can take being called a game manager and even joke about it. What he does care about is making sure when the clock finally gets to zero for the last time, that Alabama has more points on the board than the competition and that is in fact what almost always happens.
McCarron is not just a good quarterback on a great team. He is the heart and soul of that team. He is both a coach on and off the field and the game time leader and inspiration that the teams drawn on. But the most accurate thing you can say about McCarron that cannot be debated is this, McCarron is a winner and he wins when the stakes are the highest.
There’s no doubt that Johnny Manziel is perhaps more entertaining to watch, so give him an acting award. McCarron would rather have another championship ring.
And how does Murray rank ahead of McCarron? Last season, Murray’s QB rating was 174.82 while McCarron’s was 175.28. Murray did throw 36 TD’s to McCarron’s 30, but he also threw 10 picks as opposed to McCarron’s 3. Lastly Murray had a 64.5% completion ratio last season while McCarron’s number was 67%. Add this to the fact that last season was McCarron’s second title win and it makes you wonder what exactly were they looking at when they placed Murray ahead of McCarron.
You don’t confuse flash with winning. You can’t substitute yardage for winning. You are the best for one reason, you win while others lose. Given the choice of being the number one quarterback or quarterbacking the nation’s number one team, McCarron is all about championships.
McCarron is a winner and when you are the only winner left standing while all others have failed, you are number one.
Larry is an award winning writer whose work has appeared in almost every college football venue. Now he primarily writes for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. Follow Larry on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter
