Marcell Dareus Named MVP Of BCS Championship Game,

In one hit, Marcell Dareus turned a really tough game for 'Bama into an all-but-done deal. And though it would be ill-advised to hand someone the MVP for terminating the college career of the opposing QB...Oh, wait, they DID give him the MVP. 

Most of the stories written about the night involved a mention of Ingram as the offensive MVP and a long statement about how McCoy handled the injury and tried to come back in, but it seemed as if no one wanted to mention that Dareus was the real MVP for the Tide. I don't think that Dareus would even want his play last night to be seen in that one hit, but that's the reality of football, and that is also what makes good teams fail and great teams succeed. Good teams rely on great athletes and great teams rely on a team of athletes.

Like Gilbert said afterwards, McCoy doesn't get hurt, he doesn't go out of games and he always plays. And, while it has been a point of honor for McCoy, it seems that coach Brown should have been worried about this a long time ago. 

Gilbert, though just a freshman is the second-string quarterback and the backup for the most important person on the field for Texas, yet Brown gave him only 26 passing attempts all season. He had 40 just last night. He also doubled the number of completions for the year last night.  And this may sound rough, but it appears that Brown's and/or McCoy's desire for Colt to break records and compete for the Heisman may have cost them the Championship, because it's easy to find another 100 attempts for Gilbert throughout a season where the Longhorns won 9 games by 20 points and 7 by 30 points.

For instance, Gilbert did not attempt a pass against UCF, which the Longhorns beat 35-3. During a 51-20 win over Kansas, he had just one throw. In the last 5 games Gilbert had 6 pass attempts. This should look like your THIRD string quarterbacks stats if you are a championship team. 

To be fair, it would have been a huge blow for 'Bama too if McElroy went down, but you saw how well balanced they were. They were able to play without the Heisman trophy winner for 1/2 of the game, giving the ball to the amazingly capable Richardson 19 times, both when Ingram had cramps and when he was healthy. That's the obvious similarity, but the less obvious ones are even more telling. Alabama's defense was missing one of it's key players too, Dont'a Hightower, who left early in the season with a knee injury. 

In a sense Marcell Dareus is Gilbert. He's a second-string player that got a chance because someone in front of him got injured. He didn't get a lot of starts, but he is a part of a system that isn't built around ESPN highlights, rather being built around a defense and teamwork that keeps teams from being able to exploit mismatches.

Just like Florida, Texas was based around an ESPN star with a great story and great highlights. These teams usually get top billing and get higher rankings because they are seen as being better because no one wants to watch 30 second clips of defensive stop after defensive stop.  It's just the way football is seen now. Offensive powerhouses are viewed as the best teams because they have huge passes for lots of yards and are able to win games with scores that rival those of college basketball. But stories don't win championships. They don't even win games and in fact it's pretty fair to say that Tebow and Ingram don't have the best story out there, just the best ESPN story because you have to have fancy highlights to go along with the voice over.

I digress, but the point is still the same. Dareus gets the MVP because Saben builds teams around solid team performance and balanced play where no one person is essential.  Alabama could have had any one person knocked out of the game, even McElroy and still had a good shot at the title. In Hightower they really did lose a quarterback—though luckily early in the season. If you build your fortress to rest on one brick, you better have a quarterback made out of brick.