I'm really very busy these days but some of the (over)reaction to last night's Steele/Madison game is going to force me to take a break from organizing my Pez dispensers and penning death threats to Michael Cera in order to set some things straight.
Even some normally astute observers are voicing some takes which puzzle me.
First, it's true that Malcolm Brown's weight gain is of the ice cream bar variety. As a long time fan of the Drumstick and Country Cookie I sympathize but obviously that's got to go. The good news is it's simply flab and nothing six weeks of dedication won't take care of and in fact some of that will likely disappear throughout the season.
I'd certainly feel better if we had a grown up for a S&C Coordinator but there are dozens of other potential motivators out there for Malcolm between now and kickoff 2011. Also it's not like the extra weight makes him a different runner. It's more indicative of questionable conditioning as evidenced by Malcolm's obvious exhaustion on the backside of plays late. If you looked at Brown as a runner and didn't see special I don't know what to tell you other than stop taking out payday loans to buy scratch-offs.
Also much is being made of Madison's ONE RETURNING DEFENSIVE STARTER!!! (distant thunderclap). Yeah that's fine. Sometimes those departing seniors get replaced by a Vincent Taylor. There was plenty of talent out there, all crowding the line and keying on Brown. Oh and he still went for 200 all purpose and two scores.
Also I see the tendency of some of our fans to castigate Aaron Brown as some sort of midget preemie version of Fozzy Whitaker.
Yeah, let's stop that. He's got excellent size and skills and is a potential all conference level player. He might specialize on a team like Texas or OU but let's not pretend he's not an outstanding player just because his name's not on the commitment list.
Also I'm a little puzzled by the tendency to compare Malcolm Brown to Cedric Benson. I see totally different runners and if we're talking about running style the more comparable Longhorn to me is Ricky Williams in his balance, vision, power and ability to cut at full speed. He doesn't quite have Rick's acceleration but that combined with his other attributes is what gave Ricky a potential NFL Hall of Fame skill set. Being a tick below that level should induce excitement and anticipation amongst our fan base and not garment-rending.
Also, be sure to check out our friends at Better Off Red who had some thoughts on the Malcolm Brown - Aaron Green match up.