We love talking sports around here.  We love praising and bashing our teams and everyone elses’…the general banter that comes with being a college football fan in a room full of fans of schools other than our own is just as fun as actually watching the games.

While it’s fun to poke others in the ribs about their teams (i.e. Muck Fichigan, Buck Fama, Notre Dame is overrated, Gaytors, tO$U, etc.), the biggest criticisms towards teams and individual players on those teams are levied by fans of those teams.  Everybody is an armchair quarterback and coach; we all “know” what the best course of action is for our respective teams and who should play/be benched.  Just listen to the postgame radio call-in shows after a game, especially a loss.  The rhetoric from fans gets venomous very quickly.

I don’t really have a problem with all the verbal haters in  regards to professional sports.  But, in light of my favorite team’s performances over the past 1+ season, I have begun to reflect on how heavily and openly we should criticize college players.  You see, for those that may not know, my favorite team of all is the Tennessee Volunteers football team and they have stunk, mainly on offense, since the first game of the 2008 season. 

The man leading that offense for the most part has been Jonathan Crompton.  He came in as a very highly touted recruit, one of the top three quarterbacks in the nation.  You wanna guess who occupied that top three category with him?  Ryan Perrilloux and some dude named Mark Sanchez…that’s right, the current 3-0 New York Jets rookie QB who last year led Southern Cal to a 1-loss season including a Rose Bowl win over Penn State this past January.  That should be good company for Crompton to be in, except that he hasn’t lived up to the hype like Sanchez did (Perrilloux was arguably living up to the hype before his dismissal from the LSU team for being a rebel rouser and violating team rules).

I referred to Crompton as the man leading the Tennessee offense; at 22, he’s really still a kid.  Yeah, I know a lot of us had a lot of real life responsibility when we were 22, but he hasn’t, and I think that’s one thing we forget about these guys.  Think back to when you were college-aged, how much criticism do you think you could have brushed off before it really started to mess with your head?  How many death threats could you have shouldered?  Yeah, I said death threats.  It came out this past Spring that Crompton received multiple death threats after 2008’s 5-7 season and the resulting end of the Phil Fulmer era.

And, Crompton’s not the only college football player to receive a death threat, see WVU place kicker Pat McAfee and Ohio State tight end Ryan Hamby.  Obviously, death threats are crossing the line, by a lot.  But, what is the line?  How wide and fuzzy is it?  Criticism is gonna come with the territory, but how much criticism is appropriate? 

We know college athletes are gonna get accolades for the great things they do and will be local heroes in whatever college town they reside in, but has it always been as extreme as Tim Tebow not being able to go to a RadioShack without some girl trying to flash him and Colt McCoy having to worry about which route he drives home from practice?  These guys and many more will never have to buy a beer for the rest of their lives in their respective college towns.  But, what happens to the guys we label as crappy and busts throughout their college careers?  When Jon Crompton gets recognized in Knoxville, TN in 12 years, what will people say to him and how will they look at him?  Will he be continuously reminded that he’s perceived as the worst quarterback in the 100+ year history of Tennessee football?  That’s a sad prospect to have to consider at 22.  If he ends up with a family and kids, will they be heckled while growing up about their dad’s shortcomings as a quarterback decades earlier?  That’s even worse.

So, I ask the question: how far should we as reasonable fans go in criticizing college players?  Afterall, it is just a game.

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