Fighton247 Board

Are you factoring the sentimental angle, that he stayed through the sanctions? I took the question to mean from a purely football stand point, and the answer to that is no. Leinart was great for a 3 year run. Barkley has been great for 1.

How do you judge this, by their performance in the NFL? Just about all the skill players Leinart played with turned out to be nothing special in the NFL. Not one above average NFL player. Are you ready to say that neither Woods nor Lee will turn out to be a good NFL player?

Why would you use the NFL to judge great College players? What usctrojanglory said is correct.

Leinart had Bush and White in his backfield. Barkley has had nowhere near that talent level.

Leinart was throwing to Mike Williams and Keary Colbert in 2003. You could argue that at least Mike Williams is the equal to a Robert Woods, based purely on his physical gifts. Then in 2004 he was throwing to Dwayne Jarret and Steve Smith. Despite what their pro careers may have amounted to all these wide receivers were elite in college.

Leinart also had MUCH better defenses. The 2003 D, despite not being very good against the pass, was still tough and forced many turnovers. 2004 was excellent and even the 2005 D, which was the weakest of the Pete Carroll era (outside of maybe 2009) is comprable to the best Defense Barkley has had.

The only area where I'd MAYBE say Barkley has had an advantage over Leinart is the o-line. And even then Barkley was a big reason for why we ranked so highly in sacks allowed last year.

I would rather have Woods/Lee for 3 and 2 years.

Which offense is better is open to each individual. They both played or will play in loaded offenses. No you didn't say Barkley didn't benefit from his teammates, but you clearly intimated that Leinart was a product of the talent around him by equating him with Ken Dorsey. Funny, but I've never heard mentioned as one of the best college QB's of all time.

You don't have to agree with Kiffin or Felix, but you're foolish to ignore the evidence that is in front of your face. Barkley's play fell off as the season wore on in his freshman and sophomore seasons. That cannot be debated, it is a fact. Leinart's play NEVER fell off or fluctuated. He was strong from the ASU game in 2003 on, a span of 35 games. Barkley has put together 12 consecutive consistent games.

3 great seasons >>> 1 great season easily

No... and it's not even close.

I'm guessing Barkley is the one with the better stats right?

There's only two ways you can argue Barkley is at Leinart's level - hypothetical and sentimentality. If you're inclined to take the latter into account, then I won't fault you for elevating Barkley because he does hold a special place in Trojan lore for the unique role he played at a difficult time in the program's history.

As for the former, like I said in another post at some point it comes down to what you accomplish. And if you do want to play the hypothetical game, it can work just as well in the opposite direction.

How would Leinart have played as a true freshman in the Horseshoe? I'm not sure, but I know that going into Jordan Hare and leading a shutout over Auburn in his first ever start while putting up a 125 rating was much more impressive than MB7 managing the game in Columbus and McKnight winning it in the final drive. Could MB7 have done that? And remember, experience doesn't necessarily equate to greatness - Booty sat for three years and never looked as good as MB7 did last year even as a RS Senior.

How would Barkley's legacy look if he played in bowls? Who knows, but he wouldn't be here right now with an opportunity to lead this team to an NC and himself a Heisman because by his own father's admission, he would have gone pro if we weren't under sanctions the past couple of years - and everyone who is arguing his case in this thread has conceded that he has to win the Heisman and an NC for him to even be in that discussion.

What if Barkley was the one who got to learn the system for two years and play with Leinart's weapons? Maybe he does as well... or maybe he doesn't and never breaks the career passing records that he will this season because he started all four seasons to Leinart's three.

I'm on the bandwagon that the 05 offense is better than Barkley's this year and last, but the key thing to note is that he certainly doesn't lack for weapons or the pieces to put up huge stats; case in point, the 05 offensive line was loaded with All Americans but despite that talent gap, last year's crew only allowed 7 sacks all year. And when it comes strictly to putting up stats, you can make a pretty strong case that having a McNeal is preferable to having the Bush/White combo, because Curtis is good enough to make the defense respect the run game/not flood the secondary but not enough to where he becomes a focal point of the offense on par with Thunder and Lightning and take the ball out of his hands. Case in point, Barkley put up more pass attempts last year than Leinart did at any season in his career and probably will again this season.

As for the Ken Dorsey thing, it's patently ridiculous. There's a reason Dorsey never made an All American team and why he was a 7th round draft pick, and why Leinart made two and got drafted top 10. Watch the 4th and 9 throw again; says everything you need to know both about Leinart's intangibles and skills as a top tier QB.

Ultimately, as I've said before, there is no case to be made strictly on achievement that puts Barkley on Leinart's level. And given that you can play the hypothetical game until the end of time, there isn't really one there either. If it's based off overall significance in Trojan history, that's something that can be debated if you put heavy emphasis on sentiment - personally, I don't, but I won't fault anyone who does.

But if the question is overall level of accomplishment and achievements - as I interpreted it to be - then I don't see how Barkley can be reasonably argued as Leinart's equal.

Back to another thing I brought up, though - how do you all feel about Barkley vs. Palmer?

Yeah, couldn't remember if he said it himself in that Mandel piece or just his dad. Either way, he'd be gone right now.

Correct you are.

And that exact answer also applies to every hypothetical in this thread about things like "What if Barkley played with Leinart's guys?"