The Football Insider, November 14, 2008

If you go by numbers alone, Tim Tebow hasn’t got a prayer of making it to New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony much less win it a second year in a row. The numbers say he’s doing well, but that quarterbacks like Graham Harrell of Texas Tech, Colt McCoy of Texas, Sam Bradford of Oklahoma and Chase Daniel of Missouri are doing so much better.

Tebow’s numbers to date: 126-194 passing (64.9 percent) for 1,740 yards and 17 touchdowns (two interceptions), 90 carries for 354 yards and 10 touchdowns. He produced 32 passing touchdowns, 23 rushing touchdowns and 4,181 yards of total offense last year. The most important number for Tebow is 8-1 as in the third-ranked Florida Gators are 8-1 on the season heading into Saturday’s game with 25th-ranked South Carolina (3:30 p.m., Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, CBS).

Tebow has a legitimate shot at 12-1 heading into January. Three more regular season wins and a win over Alabama in the SEC Championship Game will get him to 12-1, which is a huge turnaround from the 9-4 he finished last year in a Heisman Trophy season.

Now let’s compare Tebow to the four Big 12 quarterbacks that have put up better numbers.

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Franz Beard
Back in January of 1969, the late, great Jack Hairston, then the sports editor of the Jacksonville Journal, called me on the phone one night and asked me if I wanted to work for him. I said yes. The entire interview took 30 seconds. It's my experience that whenever the interview lasts 30 seconds or less, I get the job. In the 48 years that I've been writing and getting paid for it, I've covered Super Bowls, World Series, NCAA basketball championships, BCS championship games, heavyweight title fights and what seems like thousands of college football, baseball and basketball games. I'm a columnist and special assignments editor for Gator Country once again, writing about the only team that ever mattered to me, the Florida Gators.