In The Biggest Miscarriage of Justice In The History of Sport, Penn State's Tyler Warren Wins The John Mackey Award For Best Tight End, Beating Out Bowling Green's Harold Fannin Jr.

I wish college football would just get on with it and cut the Group of 5 out entirely already. I don't want it to happen. But you know it's coming eventually. They want to do it. Just get it over with. If you're only going to acknowledge what happens in certain conferences to teams with certain logos on their helmets who covered up certain... never mind I won't go there that's unnecessary. But if Harold Fannin Jr. can put together what was arguably the best season a tight end has had in the history of college football and still not win... If a MAC player can lead all TE's in over 20 offensive categories, have the 2nd most yards of all receivers, and still not get the attention of the voters, then why do we even let them be eligible for the awards?

Penn State fans will say Tyler Warren did it against better competition, despite Harold Fannin Jr. putting up 137 yds, 1 TD at Penn State & 145 yds & 1 TD at Texas A&M while playing for a MAC school, and Tyler Warren not once going for 100 yards vs a ranked opponent. I don't even fully buy that Tyler Warren played football at a higher level of difficulty than Fannin this year. I'm sure Warren had on average tougher individual matchups. But with the exception of 2 games, Penn State's B1G schedule wasn't tough. On average there was a bigger talent disparity between Penn State and the teams they played than what Bowling Green had. Tyler Warren had a 5-star QB throwing to him all year long. Harold Fannin's schedule was weaker overall, but there are also benefits Tyler Warren had playing for Penn State that Fannin didn't.

On top of that, when you show them how Harold Fannin Jr. had a better season in every possible way, Penn State fans will take a completely wild shot in the dark and claim that Tyler Warren is a better blocker. That Harold Fannin Jr. is a glorified wide receiver. They have zero fucking clue if that's actually true or not. They just assume with the numbers he has that he must be lining up at wideout every play. Which is incorrect. Halfway through the season Mel Kiper Jr. still had Fannin on his draft board as a full back because of how great he was in the run block game, and how often he lines up in the backfield. Fannin's run blocking grade dwarfs Warren's.

I think where Bowling Green went wrong is that they didn't line Harold Fannin Jr. up in the wildcat enough. Tyler Warren has 191 rushing yards & 4 rush TD's. Yards Penn State certainly couldn't have gotten from elsewhere. I think that's what did it. Warren ran the ball effectively against Ohio State, you can't take that away from him. But aside from that, he busted a huge run against Purdue. Penn State ran a wildcat package for him in the red zone to let him vulture a few TD's. That's where Bowling Green let Fannin down. Had they let him punch in 3 or 4 TD's from inside the 10. Had they more occasionally thrown him in the wildcat on short yardage situations until he busted a big one. That might have done it for him. It's not like he wasn't capable.

But they didn't. Maybe that was something voters could point at to justify completely neglecting the fact that a tight end from the MAC just did something never before seen in college football.

If you run a search for Tyler Warren on Twitter, you'll see no mention of any tangible statistics, or any evidence that says he's the best tight end in the nation. Just a bunch of tweets saying "THE BEST TIGHT END IN THE NATION" and an excessive amount of Penn State fans throwing in a, "HANDS DOWN" or "AND IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE", because they know they have zero leg to stand on, so they'll just confidently state how unclose it is to justify not having to acknowledge the stats. "If we just establish that it shouldn't even be a competition to begin with, then we can ignore what happened on the field entirely." 

Because anything that does mention Tyler Warren's stats has to come with a fine print disclaimer.

But I do take solace in the fact that a majority of the tweets from non-Penn State or B1G accounts announcing Tyler Warren as the Mackey winner go something like this.

#1 Ball Watcher in America, Liam Blutman, summed the whole thing up in a couple tweets last night, much better than I can just rambling about evidence.

That's probably it more than anything. Tyler Warren is a better tight end prospect. He probably has better measurables. Which I guess is what college football has always been about to a large degree. The results on the field don't matter nearly as much as a lot of people think they should. Just like how people want to see the teams with the most talent in the playoffs, as opposed to the teams who had the best seasons. If a team full of 5-star NFL talent shits the bed three times, but people think they still have the ability to go on a run, people will think they're more deserving. For whatever reason, that precedent was set in college football a long time ago. We don't do it with any other sports. But with college football, how good a team or a player should be, or potentially could be on paper plays a massive role in the decision making. I fucking hate it, but that's the way it is. I'm sure that same mentality goes into voting for these awards as well. They vote for the player who they believe has the most talent, not the player who performed the best week-in and week-out. 

But a special shoutout to the good accomplished ball knowers at the Walter Camp Football Foundation, who rightfully named Harold Fannin Jr. a 1st Team All-American.

And shoutout to PFF, who's had Harold Fannin Jr. as the highest rated player in all of college football for a majority of the season.

Really sucks as a fan of a MAC school that when you finally think you have a player who will get the recognition he deserves. When he has as good of a season as a tight end can possibly have. That college football will bring you right back down to earth with a big ol' middle finger to remind you that you don't in fact matter at all. 

Above all I'm disappointed in myself for ever getting my hopes up. What a fucking idiot I am. Especially considering that of the 11 John Mackey Award voters… one is Lee Corso… one is Tom Deinhart of the B1G Network (formerly he now covers Purdue)… and 3 of them are former B1G Tight Ends (Jake Butts/Michigan, Dallas Clark/Iowa, Tim Stratton/Purdue).

And another one of them is this guy…

If you think Dick Weiss (@HoopsWeiss) had ever heard Harold Fannin Jr.'s name in his life before seeing it on the ballot then you're kidding yourself.

A real shame. But despite a stretch of football where Tyler Warren went for 50 yards or less receiving in 5 of 6 games, he had a phenomenal season. He's an incredible player. He'll have an incredible NFL career. He deserves… something. B1G tight end of the year, yes. P4 tight end of the year. He deserves those. But not the John Mackey Award.