When discussing the two biggest (well, two best, since Mallett is an enormous man-being, but Clausen is more normal-sized) QB recruits for the 2007 class, people in the world at large are prone to talking about how the battles between Mallett and Clausen will be historic, etc. For the sake of this post, I’m going to assume that everyone turns out healthy, is as ridicu-good as the experts say they are, and matriculates at the school of his choice.
The most important fallacy I’ve seen (and, unfortunately, I’ve seen it fairly often) is the idea that these two will be facing off against each other four times. Since they are in the same class, this would seem to make sense. They are in the recruiting class of 2007, and both will be freshmen during the 2007 football season.
However, Notre Dame’s quarterback, Brady Quinn (we won’t get into this in too much detail now, but he is certainly the most overhyped payer in America right now) is going to be graduating following this year, and, if everything goes that way that ESPN has planned for it to happen, he will be the number one pick in the draft, despite needing a fair amount of luck to hit the broad side of a barn a good portion of the time. Michigan’s quarterback, the occasionally just-as-inaccurate Chad Henne, is only going to be a junior this coming year, and barring an outstanding 2006 season from him (which is possible, but not likely), he will be back in 2007.
So, for Jimmy Clausen’s first battle against Michigan, he will presumably be squaring off in Ann Arbor against a senior in Chad Henne (who, if everything goes according to ESPN’s master plan, will have yet to beat Notre Dame in his 3 tries). This will leave Mallett on the bench (remember, we’re assuming, for the sake of argument, that everyone stays healthy). Therefore, Mallett’s first start against JC will actually be in the 2008 season, as either a redshirt freshman or true sophomore. The two will play three times in their careers.
Now, Mallett’s status of redshirting, etc. is a little more less than Clausen’s (he is already penciled in as the starter for Notre Dame in 2007), but we won’t go into that in too much detail right now. I just wanted to clear the air in the blogosphere about the assumed Mallett v. Clausen battles that will be taking place in the future (and maybe sooner than we expect, if both attend the Elite 11 combine).
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