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Thursday Special…January 16, 2025.
Just know that it’s going to happen sooner or later. Boise State great Kellen Moore, who meets all the criteria, was passed over for the fourth time yesterday for the College Football Hall of Fame. There’s backlog of quarterbacks in the queue to get in. That’s one explanation. Three QBs were elected: Notre Dame’s Terry Hanratty from the 1960s, Virginia Tech’s Michael Vick and Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell.
But you’d think Moore would at least have been ahead of Harrell in the line. Harrell’s career span (2005-08) was three years ahead of Moore, but (speaking of criteria) Harrell’s record was 33-12 compared to the two most important numbers on Kellen’s resume: 50 and 3. That, of course, is the best record by a starting quarterback in college football history.
CHECKING THE BOXES
So what is the stated Hall of Fame criteria from the National Football Foundation? “First and foremost, a player must have received first-team All-America recognition by a selector recognized by the NCAA and utilized to comprise their consensus All-America teams.” In Kellen Moore’s case, done. Beyond that it’s on-field performance and “his post-football record as a citizen.” We don’t have to worry about that latter part. As for the former, Moore is third all-time with 142 career touchdown passes and 10thwith 14,667 passing yards, just to name a couple of benchmarks.
IS IT A GROUP OF 5 BIAS THING?
Many wonder if this is just favoritism—Power 4 over the Group of 5. You could say no, considering that Armanti Edwards of Appalachian State was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2024. Edwards was quarterback of the Mountaineers when they were an FBS program and led the legendary upset of No. 5 Michigan in the Big House in 2007. On the other hand, maybe the NFF wants to balance things between the FBS and FCS—and FBS players could all be lumped together. In that case, does the G5 indeed get the short straw?
BIGGER FISH TO FRY
Moore is fairly distracted right now. Not only is the Philadelphia offensive coordinator prepping for the Eagles’ Divisional Round playoff game Sunday against the L.A. Rams, he sorting out all the places he could end up next season. Moore has been interviewed for the head coaching jobs in both New Orleans and Jacksonville, but that pales in comparison to the circus that is Dallas. He’s considered a top candidate with the Cowboys despite the unceremonious way he left the organization two years ago.
NOT TO WORRY
Do you think Kellen Moore dreamed of the College Football Hall of Fame when he was diagramming plays at the dining room table in Prosser at the age of 14? I doubt it. Kellen just wanted to get on the field and see if his ideas would work. And lo and behold, he did play a little as a skinny freshman at Prosser High in 2003, going 4-of-9 for 56 yards and a touchdown with one interception. By the time he was finished, he had thrown a Washington state record 173 TD passes. Kellen has always been that one-game-at-a-time guy, and his football life has been like that: one phase at a time. In College Hall of Fame terms, high school doesn’t matter (nor does the NFL). But his years at Boise State were incomparable, and his time will come.
This Day In Sports…brought to you by BIG BUN DRIVE-IN…old-time goodness you can grab on the go!
January 16, 2015, 10 years ago today: The late Joe Paterno is once again the winningest coach in major college football history, as the NCAA restores 112 Penn State victories that had been wiped out during the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal. That moved Paterno back to 409 career victories. The NCAA had eliminated all wins from 1998—when police first investigated a mother’s complaint against Sandusky—through 2011, Paterno’s final season as coach after six decades with the team, and the year Sandusky was charged. Paterno passed away in January, 2012.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK. He also served as color commentator on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football for 14 seasons.)
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