There's nothing wrong with who is on this list, but the majority of today's reaction centered on those who were not - due to "unspoken" rules - selected rather than those who were. The two biggest slights, Ohio State's Orlando Pace and Nebraska's Tommie Frazier, were overlooked as a result of an unwritten rule. The rules says (without being a rule) that if a school was represented in the prior year's class, that no players from said school shall be chosen. Since Eddie George (OSU) and Will Shields (Nebraska) got the call last year, that sealed the fate for Pace and Frazier. So there's the reason, but here's the thing about that: it's stupid.
This is an Ohio State-related blog, of course, and I know that you expect I will go on about Orlando Pace, but I want to focus on the ridiculous exclusion of Frazier; who has been eligible since 2006. I am not a mathematician, but after doing some counting on my fingers, I came up with six times that Frazier has been overlooked. With apologies to Barbara Mandrell, Frazier was Tebow, when Tebow wasn't cool.
I fell in love with college football in the mid-1990's, and while Ohio State was always the first thing on my TV and in my conversations at the lunch table on Monday mornings; but it was Frazier who stood out as the best player in three straight national title games. It was Frazier who taught me that a quarterback could be successful in non-traditional offenses. It was Frazier, not Doug Williams or Warren Moon, who has most impacted the game as we know it today, when quarterbacks, black or white, can strike a defense at its core and rip it to shreds from the inside out.
Frazier's 75-yard touchdown run in the 1996 Fiesta Bowl, as part of one college football's all-time greatest teams, instantly became the run that me and all my friends would try to mimic on Sunday afternoon football games.
Here is a player who's on the field exploits have never been outdone by off the field mistakes, nor did he leave a black mark on the Huskers due to arrests or NCAA violations. He finished a short professional career and went into coaching, and continues to be a bright spot in the now fading shadow that was once Nebraska's national relevance. Yet, he continues to be snubbed by a group of "nominations may be made only by a dues-paying member of the National Football Foundation or by athletic directors, coaches or CoSida members representing dues-paying colleges/universities," for reasons unknown or just flat out fabricated.
If this isn't enough to get someone into the NFF Hall of Fame in his first year eligible, is it enough to get him in his 7th?
