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Antwaan Randle El college highlights

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by troop loop, Jul 23, 2012.

  1. troop loop

    troop loop New Member

    We had a lengthy thread earlier this year about the best college football players we had watched play in person. Antwaan Randle El was mentioned often yet there was almost no footage on YouTube. This was posted earlier today. Wow.

    .be
     
  2. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Why do I smell a rat here? I'm not clicking on that link from the office. If this is bullshit, someone let me know
     
  3. Big Circus

    Big Circus Well-Known Member

    It's real, Moddy. (And it's Antwaan Randle El in college, so it's spectacular, too.)
     
  4. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    I was very blessed to cover Indiana football during the Randle El era. Without question, the most electrifying player I've ever seen in college.

    A lot of those highlights are from his debut against Western Michigan in 1998. That's No. 1 on my all-time list of "where the fuck did THIS guy come from?" performances.

    But a bunch of Levron Williams highlights too? Someone was trying too hard to be definitive on the halcyon days of late 90s/early 2000s IU football.

    And IU fans showed their stupidity as attendance dropped through the course of Randle El's career. Not sure why. They sucked before he got there in the dying throes of the Bill Mallory era and would suck worse when he left.
     
  5. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Agreed. And without question the player who should've won the 01 Heisman. Eric Crouch vs. Randle El? Please.
     
  6. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    Those highlights don't include my personal favorite. IU played Iowa in Bloomington in 2000. Randle El went downfield, maybe 15 yards or so, and successfully completed an option pitch from inside the hashmarks to the left sideline. He was damn near midfield.

    Gobsmacked.
     
  7. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    "This was posted earlier today?" Really?

    The account that posted the Randle El highlights? "Troop Loop."
     
  8. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    That was in the middle of the whole whizzing match over Bob Knight, too. Lots of people withheld their $$ and support. It was also the time period when the Colts began to be relevant, and a lot of fans that were going to Bloomington suddenly were buying Colts season tickets and watching Peyton.

    It wasn't just Knight, either. You could go to the message boards and spend hours arguing over Bill Mallory's firing five years after the fact (I remember some people complaining that IU's problem was that it was scoring too fast -- after watching some of the awful offenses they've had in years since, I wonder if they'd rescind those comments). I've never seen a fan base that bickered with itself over petty stuff more virulently than IU fans in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Meanwhile, I was sitting back and enjoying what I was seeing, because the years since -- with a couple of exceptions -- have been ugh-lee.
     
  9. sportbook

    sportbook Member

    That's very true. The Big Ten was also loaded at that time. You had Dayne at Wisconsin, Brees at Purdue, Brady at Michigan, Arrington and Brown at Penn State, and even Illinois and Minnesota were decent. Still not sure anyone can win at IU.
     
  10. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    Not in 2000. Yes Purdue had Drew Brees, but that's one of the worst Big Ten champions in the modern era by almost any measure -- postseason (lack of) success, final AP/coaches' polls, final computer rankings.

    Not sure how crimsonace feels about it, but I always felt the whole "Bill Mallory-was-fired-too-soon!" crowd trolled in revisionist history.

    Yes, Mallory is the most important football coach IU has had in the last 40 years. He built IU into a legit program in the late 80s and early 90s.

    But IU was awful in his last two seasons. Awful in terms of W-L records (2-9 and 3-8 and 1-15 in the Big Ten), but also awful in terms of being so boring as to be unwatchable. Drawing crowds in Bloomington for football isn't easy to begin with, but Mallory's teams weren't exactly gate fodder.

    What made Mallory look good in hindsight was that Cam Cameron was in way over his head and Gerry DiNardo was God awful. No coach has had success since Mallory, so his star rises with it.

    That's cool, but his last two years certainly warranted a change.
     
  11. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    No disrespect to Randal El but Denard Robinson highlights pre Hoke era are even more impressive.
     
  12. Bruce Leroy

    Bruce Leroy Active Member

    That's the play I always turn to in a Randle El debate. It was probably the moment I decided he was the best football player I'd ever seen too.
     
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