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More (back handed?) compliments for McCaffrey - Printable Version

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More (back handed?) compliments for McCaffrey - FarmBoy - 01-15-2016

ESPN put out it's "all bowl game" team. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but McAffery was again not recognized as an RB. Am I the only one who thinks this designation is a way of not recognizing his impact as an RB? Perhaps there were legitimate reasons the other two RBs were recognized over McAffery, but he did rush for 172 and receive over 100 (a first in the RB) out of the RB position against a (statistically) topflight defense.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/bowls14/story/_/id/14568506/clemson-tigers-deshaun-watson-stanford-cardinal-christian-mccaffrey-highlight-2015-all-bowl-team

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - JohnR34231 - 01-15-2016

Given the fact that they said that CMac might very well have won the H.eisman if the vote was taken after the bowl games, it didn't strike me as a backhanded compliment.

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - ColoradoTree - 01-15-2016

Sorry, but this is like nails on a chalkboard to me.  McCaffrey.  McCaffrey.  McCaffrey. 

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - JohnR34231 - 01-15-2016

(01-15-2016, 09:20 AM)ColoradoTree link Wrote:Sorry, but this is like nails on a chalkboard to me.  McCaffrey.  McCaffrey.  McCaffrey.

Is that like Grant and Bobby Lee, Bobby Lee, Bobby Lee?  :)

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - Oasis - 01-15-2016

What Christian did in the Rose Bowl was for the ages.  You can cite this or that statistic but I saw these other guys play and nobody else came close to Christian.  As Hank says in his very fine article, mixed with the sheer joy of watching the team (not just Christian, but especially him) was a sense of responsibility to remember this game because -- at least for Stanford fans -- there hasn't been anything like it.  Mainly that was because there hasn't been anybody like Christian on the field.

Christian is fast, elusive and smart to the point of changing the whole game.  He doesn't just run or catch.  He plays high-speed chess with the defense, using blockers and timing to beat them.  Nobody else returns kicks (for TDs), catches mid-range passes and outruns everybody else to the end zone AND runs between the tackles.  I have never seen Christian fumble.  It's beyond belief. 

Reading the bowl reportage and watching the Voldemort show to me have been like listening to Mozart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaXQQbcgw0) and then watching the football establishment go bonkers for Salieri.

http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/rose-bowl-stanford-iowa-christian-mccaffrey-takes-over-the-rose-bowl-with-a-stunning-63-yard-punt-return-td-010116

AND he's an academic all-American at a place where the academic competition is pretty keen.  But the football mainstream are saying, "nice but too many notes." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU

IMO Stanford put the best player and -- at the end of the season -- the best team on the field this year.

Okay, I'm totally biased, but there it is.

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - Oasis - 01-15-2016

(01-15-2016, 09:44 AM)JPRI link Wrote:[quote author=ColoradoTree link=topic=14401.msg152943#msg152943 date=1452874811]
Sorry, but this is like nails on a chalkboard to me.  McCaffrey.  McCaffrey.  McCaffrey.

Is that like Grant and Bobby Lee, Bobby Lee, Bobby Lee?  :)
[/quote]

[Image: MTE1ODA0OTcxNjk0Nzg2MDYx.jpg]

Not a guy you'd want to get in a fight with.

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - ColoradoTree - 01-15-2016

Nor was Sam Grant, if I remember how that whole fight between the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac ended up....

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - ColoradoTree - 01-15-2016

(01-15-2016, 10:05 AM)Oasis link Wrote:What Christian did in the Rose Bowl was for the ages.  You can cite this or that statistic but I saw these other guys play and nobody else came close to Christian.  As Hank says in his very fine article, mixed with the sheer joy of watching the team (not just Christian, but especially him) was a sense of responsibility to remember this game because -- at least for Stanford fans -- there hasn't been anything like it.  Mainly that was because there hasn't been anybody like Christian on the field.

Christian is fast, elusive and smart to the point of changing the whole game.  He doesn't just run or catch.  He plays high-speed chess with the defense, using blockers and timing to beat them.  Nobody else returns kicks (for TDs), catches mid-range passes and outruns everybody else to the end zone AND runs between the tackles.  I have never seen Christian fumble.  It's beyond belief. 

Reading the bowl reportage and watching the F Stanford award show to me have been like listening to Mozart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaXQQbcgw0) and then watching the football establishment go bonkers for Salieri.

http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/rose-bowl-stanford-iowa-christian-mccaffrey-takes-over-the-rose-bowl-with-a-stunning-63-yard-punt-return-td-010116

AND he's an academic all-American at a place where the academic competition is pretty keen.  But the football mainstream are saying, "nice but too many notes." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU

IMO Stanford put the best player and -- at the end of the season -- the best team on the field this year.

Okay, I'm totally biased, but there it is.

Yep.  Pretty much this. 

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - Oasis - 01-15-2016

(01-15-2016, 10:25 AM)ColoradoTree link Wrote:Nor was Sam Grant, if I remember how that whole fight between the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac ended up....

In anything like an even fight, I will stick with Lee notwithstanding.

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - Rally - 01-15-2016

Only two players rushed for over 2,000 yds this season, yet one of them is rarely honored as a running back.  I suspect, given recent societal trends, that the selectors want to spread the love and so avoid listing McCaffrey first team (or second in many cases) at TWO positions.  Hell, I can't remember which one but one of these things selected three teams and couldn't find room for the 2,000 yd rusher among the six spots.  Ridiculous.

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - Rally - 01-15-2016

(01-15-2016, 10:08 AM)Oasis link Wrote:[quote author=JPRI link=topic=14401.msg152945#msg152945 date=1452876298]
[quote author=ColoradoTree link=topic=14401.msg152943#msg152943 date=1452874811]
Sorry, but this is like nails on a chalkboard to me.  McCaffrey.  McCaffrey.  McCaffrey.

Is that like Grant and Bobby Lee, Bobby Lee, Bobby Lee?  :)
[/quote]

[Image: MTE1ODA0OTcxNjk0Nzg2MDYx.jpg]

Not a guy you'd want to get in a fight with.
[/quote]

As a leader of men you might be right, but if you're talking about personal, Sam Grant one on one would have sent him to the hospital.  At best.

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - ColoradoTree - 01-15-2016

(01-15-2016, 10:31 AM)Oasis link Wrote:[quote author=ColoradoTree link=topic=14401.msg152960#msg152960 date=1452878759]
Nor was Sam Grant, if I remember how that whole fight between the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac ended up....

In anything like an even fight, I will stick with Lee notwithstanding.
[/quote]

Scoreboard. 

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - Leftcoast - 01-15-2016

Don't know about this Bobby Lee guy.  He was like a good SEC team - recruited well, weak out of conference schedule, always played home games and got the snot beat out of him when he had that one away match in Pennsylvania.

:-)

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McCaffrey - CompSci87 - 01-15-2016

(01-15-2016, 09:20 AM)ColoradoTree link Wrote:Sorry, but this is like nails on a chalkboard to me.  McCaffrey.  McCaffrey.  McCaffrey.

Yes, praising a guy while misspelling his name is a bit of a backhanded compliment in itself.

Surely you're joking, Leftcoast - Oasis - 01-15-2016

Lee did not get the "snot beat out of him" by a long shot -- ever.

Take Gettysburg.  Lee was on the cusp of winning several times on the second day.  Even Union apologists like Allen Guelzo admit it.  Lee anticipated the moves and dominated the minds of all his opponents, which is why we see George Meade (per Guelzo), supposedly at the pinnacle of his career in repelling Pickett, on the other side of the battlefield at that moment getting ready for a last stand. 

After the battle, Meade's army was so beaten up they were grateful still to be attached to their genitals.  Same for Meade.  In the year before Gettysburg, Lee had to fend off four "on to Richmonds" (Seven Days, Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville).  In the 10 months after Gettysburg, there were NONE.  Lee even detached part of his army a couple of months after Gettysburg to help out Bragg at Chickamauga.

I can't believe what passes for history on this board.  In any event, I am sticking with Lee, Mozart and McCaffrey contra mundum.

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - CornFed - 01-15-2016

"He plays high-speed chess with the defense .  .  .  ."

Oasis, that is poetry.  Well done.

Comparisons to Amadeus and Robert E. Lee in terms of cosmic exceptionalism is not over the top. 

MacKaphrey is an artiste!

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - Leftcoast - 01-15-2016

Sorry, Oasis.  I was channelling my inner C.al Fan with my Lee synopsis.  Perhaps the flippant humor and tongue in cheek sarcasm in comparing Lee to the SEC didn't make it through the interwebs filter.

Both armies were spent after Gettysburg and Lee masterfully led a well defended retreat in horrendous conditions.  He dealt with the heavy rains and flooded Potomac by  fortifying his temporary position north of the river to the point that some of his officers were actively hoping that they could draw Meade into a frontal assault of the type they so devastatingly defended at Fredericksburg. 

Of course, we should give Lincoln the final assessment of Meade's work and Lincoln's final grade for Meade at Gettysburg would have been a D- at best due to the costly victory coupled with his failure to aggressively pursue the Army of North Virginia North of the Potomac after the three days of fighting near Gettysburg. 

Here's an excerpt and link to the letter Lincoln wrote to Meade after Lee had escaped across the waning floodwaters of the Potomac.  He's responding to Meade's request to be releived of command (hardlyt what you expect from the victorious commander).  It's short and well written stuff.  I wonder if our current Presidential candidates are capable of this level of writing.

Quote:Again, my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last monday, how can you possibly do so South of the river, when you can take with you very few more than two thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect, and I do not expect you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it.

I beg you will not consider this a prossecution, or persecution of yourself.  As you had learned that I was dissatisfied, I have thought it best to kindly tell you why.

http://www.historyplace.com/civilwar/lett-6.htm

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - ColoradoTree - 01-15-2016

OT warning.  We have strayed off track, and I am not about to help matters.

"Union apologists."  Wow.  Apparently a phrase that did not die out during Reconstruction. 

Oasis, I don't think anyone here is questioning Lee's prowess as a strategist--indeed, he outmaneuvered Union commanders repeatedly throughout 1862 as you note--or his near-mythical status to Confederate soldiers as a leader of men.  And I certainly don't claim that Meade was the better general, particularly since his failure to follow up the success at Gettysburg with an active pursuit of Lee was a monumental mistake.  But let's not pretend that Gettysburg was Lee's crowning moment of glory.  Setting aside the wisdom of lobbying Jefferson Davis to invade the North rather than fortify Vicksburg and other Confederate holdings, this was hardly his greatest battle. 

On the first day, Lee failed to have Ewell press forward, which allowed the Union to entrench on the heights.  (If you want to insulate Lee from blame in this, you can blame Ewell for not taking Cemetery Hill, but Lee's order was to take the hill "if practicable" and left wiggle room that proved crucial.  You can also credit Howard and Hancock for entrenching on Cemetery Hill, if you like, which fed Ewell's (likely erroneous) conclusion that an assault wasn't practicable.  Lee may have "anticipated the move" that the North would entrench on the heights, but anticipation without execution isn't terribly useful.  You can also credit Meade, Strong Vincent, and others for setting up the left flank all the way to Little Round Top.)  That failure set the stage for the rest of the failures to come. 

On the second day, Lee doubled down on that failure by attempting an assault up the heights--against Longstreet's advice to avoid any attack at all, let alone one up the heights--which was spectacularly costly to his army.  (Again, if you want to insulate Lee from blame in this, you can blame Jeb Stuart for poor intelligence on Union positions, or you can--as many Southerners did--blame Longstreet for daring question the great Robert E. Lee.  Or, you can credit Sickles for defending the Wheatfield to the last, effectively sacrificing the III Corps to preserve that position.  Or Strong Vincent for stretching the flank to cover Little Round Top.  Or Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain for ordering a downhill bayonet charge when the 20th Maine was effectively out of ammunition.)  At the same time, while the Confederates may have been on the "cusp" of winning when Anderson's division of Hill's corps nearly broke through the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge, but the key phrase there is "nearly."  (If you want to insulate Lee from blame in this, I suppose you could blame Cadmus Wilcox for not pressing his brigade of Alabamians harder at Plum Run.  That seems uncharitable, however, when the 1st Minnesota, one measly, already heavily damaged regiment of 262 men, charged Wilcox's men--an entire brigade --with bayonets fixed and held that line at the expense of their regiment.  That is not an exaggeration, as the 1st Minnesota suffered 82% casualties in an estimated 10 minutes of fighting.  You could also credit Hancock for filling that gap with the 1st Minnesota, and buying time for the Union to fortify the position.  As a native Minnesotan, however, I choose to honor Col. Colvill and his men, who knew they were marching to their deaths but marched anyway--and on the double-quick.) 

That leaves us with the third day, which means Porter Alexander's ineffective artillery barrage and the near-annihilation of an entire Confederate division in Pickett's Charge.  Again, instead of recognizing the tremendous risk in another attack and undertaking a strategic retreat to prepare for an attack on ground of Lee's own choosing (as urged by Longstreet), Lee chose again to attack, and the failure was catastrophic to the Confederacy's cause.  (I don't think you can insulate Lee from this decision.  It was decisive, it was disastrous, and it was entirely his.  If you like, you can blame faulty Confederate intelligence saying that the Union artillery was largely knocked out in the center, feeding the belief that Alexander's artillery barrage finished the job, or you can blame Alexander for often overshooting the Union lines. Or you can credit Union Brig. Gen. Henry Hunt for gradually letting his cannons cease fire to give the impression that they were being destroyed, only to bring them to bear in full force when Pickett's division led Longstreet's corps toward Cemetery Ridge.  Or you can credit Meade for fortifying the center of his lines, correctly anticipating that due to failed attacks on the flanks the day before, and how closely the Confederates came to breaking the center of the lines, Lee would charge, if at all, in the center.  You can call Longstreet's and Pickett's blame of Lee for ordering the charge Monday morning quarterbacking.  But you cannot reasonably argue that ordering that charge on that day under those circumstances was a good tactical decision.)

Lee was lucky that Meade failed to order an attack on July 4 or otherwise pursue the Confederates.  Had he done so, the war would have ended sooner.  Lee's reputation certainly fed into Meade's caution there, but so did the fact that Meade was disinclined to abandon the heights that had just proved so valuable.  Lee was certainly a brilliant tactician and a beloved leader of men.  But Gettysburg was not his finest hour.  The only arguable success he achieved at Gettysburg--keeping the Army of Northern Virginia from total destruction or surrender--was due less to his careful planning of the retreat and more due to Meade's hesitation.  Lincoln's assessment in the letter leftcoast cited was spot-on: the victory at Gettysburg was tremendous, and Meade's failure to complete that victory by pursuing the Confederates harder was a missed "golden opportunity" that had the consequence of extending the war for two more bloody years.  If we think of the successful retreat as a battle in and of itself, then Lee only won it because Meade gave it away. 

Ultimately, to say that we should venerate Lee because he "almost" won at Gettysburg fails to recognize the sound tactical decisions and individual acts of heroism that, to our country's great fortune, ensured that he didn't. 

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - 81alum - 01-15-2016

Quote:"The fault is entirely my own."
— Robert E. Lee to George Pickett, after the Charge.

Re: More (back handed?) compliments for McAffery - BostonCard - 01-15-2016

Well, here is a nice compliment for McCaffrey:

http://www.si.com/college-football/2016/01/15/college-football-2015-season-awards?xid=si_social

"Biggest breakout star"

Also, Francis Owusu wins Best highlight, and, on the negative, our loss to Northwestern is listed as "Most Shocking Result", though I guess it says something about expectations and our track record that a loss against a team that would wind up in the top-25 would be considered the most shocking result of the season.

BC