ESPN.com just had an article that did the top 4 coaches and the top 4 players of all time. I really think if they had a 5th coach, Lavell deserves that spot. With a 258-101-3 record,(.722) and 1 NATIONAL TITLE, he changed the way the game was played. Because of him a lot of college teams are now going with a pass first offense. Under him the QB's threw 11,000+ passes for over 100,000 yards. He won 22 conference titles over his 29 years. He's coached 1 heisman winner, and 3 heisman finalists 1 doak walker award winner, a maxwell award, 2 outland trophies, 4 davy obrien awards and 7 sammy baugh awards. He also has coached 11 consensus all-americans. In addition to all of this he was a great leader. He shaped the lives of these young men, and in many ways has influence my life as a spectator. I think we should have a post to honor the great Lavell Edwards.
Below is the link for the ESPN article which has these men as the best 4 coaches and players:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=maisel_ivan&id=3453037

Coaches:
Knute Rockne, Paul "bear" Bryant, Joe Paterno, and Bobby Bowden

Players:
Red Grange, Archie Griffin, Herschel Walker, and Tommie Frazier

Sidenote... Detmer was a better college qb than Frazier

AlaskaCougarFan wrote:

ESPN.com just had an article that did the top 4 coaches and the top 4 players of all time. I really think if they had a 5th coach, Lavell deserves that spot. With a 258-101-3 record,(.722) and 1 NATIONAL TITLE, he changed the way the game was played. Because of him a lot of college teams are now going with a pass first offense. Under him the QB's threw 11,000+ passes for over 100,000 yards. He won 22 conference titles over his 29 years. He's coached 1 heisman winner, and 3 heisman finalists 1 doak walker award winner, a maxwell award, 2 outland trophies, 4 davy obrien awards and 7 sammy baugh awards. He also has coached 11 consensus all-americans. In addition to all of this he was a great leader. He shaped the lives of these young men, and in many ways has influence my life as a spectator. I think we should have a post to honor the great Lavell Edwards.
Below is the link for the ESPN article which has these men as the best 4 coaches and players:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=maisel_ivan&id=3453037

Coaches:
Knute Rockne, Paul "bear" Bryant, Joe Paterno, and Bobby Bowden

Players:
Red Grange, Archie Griffin, Herschel Walker, and Tommie Frazier

Sidenote... Detmer was a better college qb than Frazier:woohoo:

I could think of 100's of greater players then Herschel...

AlaskaCougarFan wrote:

Players:
Red Grange, Archie Griffin, Herschel Walker, and Tommie Frazier

Sidenote... Detmer was a better college qb than Frazier:woohoo:

Detmer was a better passer (which is what you think of when you think of a QB....at least as a BYU fan), but Frazier was pretty dominant...just in a different way. He ran the option to perfection, and he was pretty tough to stop. Those Nebraska teams were some of the greatest ever.

TimO wrote:

I could think of 100's of greater players then Herschel...

Really? Did you watch him play much in the 80's? I lived in Athens as a kid during that time so maybe I'm a little biased. Although I'm sure you could argue for other players to be in the top 5, it's no stretch of the imagination to put Walker there.

Completely agree about Detmer over Frazier. However, I couldn't put LaVell above Tom Osborne. Tom's 25 years only, thank you, didn't get his numbers as high as Bowden's or Paterno's but if he had stayed in the game they would have been there with room to spare.

I'm not trying to knock LaVell either, but just pointing out that Nebraska was an absolute dynasty with Osborne around. Meanwhile LaVell played in the WAC.

Still I'd call LaVell number 6. Even Scovill, the guy who wrote up the inventive pass-oriented playbook credits Edwards with the idea for the offense. That's really LaVell's legacy more than W/L

Yzzazz wrote:
Nebraska was an absolute dynasty with Osborne around. Meanwhile LaVell played in the WAC.[quote]


I'd just like to point out that Osborne played in the Big 2 and Little Six Conference which was pretttty weak for a long time during his era. It was a joke during the 80's really. Kansas, K-State, Colorado, Iowa State all pretty much sucked. OSU and Missouri had some good teams thrown in. That's how I remember it. And talk about scheduling non-conference patsies! Puleassse! Nebraska invented it. They were the absolute King! And for good measure, I'm throwing in OUs record in 1984 when Barry "cry baby" Switzer moaned and groaned so much about BYU being number one. Still gripes me to this day.

http://www.gnextinc.com/ou/record8084.html