Who Should Be the Top Pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, Ndamukong Suh or Gerald McCoy?

Something went missing from college football at the start of the 1996 season. That was the year the Big 12 came into existence sending decades-old Big 8 gridiron rivals Nebraska and Oklahoma into opposing divisions, thus ending the annual match-up between two of college football's most elite programs.

While the Huskers and Sooners do get to square off in two-years-on/two-years-off intervals, there has been a decided lack of shine to the series since the separation.

That's why what has shaped up to be a two-man race for the top spot in the 2010 NFL Draft between Nebraska's Ndamukong Suh and Oklahoma's Gerald McCoy adds particular interest to the normally dull college football offseason.

While Suh became a bona fide college football superstar in the 2009 season in his unlikely fourth place finish in Heisman voting (the highest ever for a defensive lineman), Gerald McCoy capped off a three-year career in the limelight with back-to-back selections as an AP All-American. McCoy might have nabbed it three years in a row had he not opted to forgo his senior year.

Analysts (as well as fans) are now torn as to which Big 12 lineman is truly the best of the 2009 NCAA class. Gerald McCoy's fans tout his amazing speed and agility while Ndamukong Suh's proponents ballyhoo his brute strength as evidenced by the many times the "House of Spears" flicked offensive lineman aside enroute to (nearly) tearing the limbs off opposing quarterbacks.

Illustrations of exactly what people are talking about can be seen in the following youtube clips. The first is of Gerald McCoy in the 2009 BCS title game against Florida. Most impressive here is the amazing speed with which #93 blasts through an opening to snuff an option play in the backfield. (It comes at 2:25.)

Gerald McCoy versus Florida

Also notable is the Sooner lineman's interception of Tim Tebow at the 3:00 mark. Interceptions are rare for defensive lineman and this one came at the height of McCoy's college career on the biggest stage he has yet seen. Watching him wreak havoc against elite opposition (and as only a sophomore in that National Title game) conjurs nothing but satisfied visions for potential NFL employers.

Ndamukong Suh also wreaked some havoc.

Or, maybe "wrought a path of destruction" is a more apt description. The best example of this came in the 2009 Big 12 Championship game in which Nebraska's own #93 terrorized another McCoy -- Texas quarterback, Colt. The opening clip in this video shows Suh tossing his fellow Heisman finalist five yards as if he were no more than an Australian midget.

Suh flings Colt McCoy

So who is better?

Gerald McCoy has had an astonishing career and is a full year younger than Suh. Were Nebraska's #93 to have declared eligibility for the draft last year after his junior year (as McCoy has done) he wouldn't have been in a battle for first pick with anybody. Very likely, he would've been picked low in the first round as his potential showed in 2008, but it wasn't quite on par with the monster year that he had in 2009.

So, in that regard, the advantage seems to be with McCoy -- an underclassman standing toe-to-toe in the eyes of the experts to this superstar senior. Drafting players into the NFL is as much about predicting potential as it is in marveling over collegiate accomplishments.
But there's a problem with this philosophy and it lies within statistics.

Gerald McCoy's best year (2009) statistically, would have only been Ndamukong Suh's third best. While not even landing third team All-American in 2008, Suh had 76 tackles, 7 ½ sacks and 2 interceptions that year. These were stats well beyond anything produced by the six defensive tackles who made All American in 2008. McCoy included.

While Suh deservedly shared top All American honors with Alabama's Terrence Cody in 2009, it was thanks in no small part to producing a statistical landslide, the volume of which buries his contemporaries.

Take these numbers for example:

Gerald McCoy had 83 total tackles, 14 ½ sacks and 1 interception for his career.

Ndamukong Suh had 85 tackles, 12 sacks and 1 interception for 2009 alone.

And what about Suh's career? Try 214 tackles, 24 sacks and 4 interceptions. Suh played one more season than McCoy, but his freshman year's totals produced only a drop in the bucket of his total stats.

How does Suh's career numbers compare to other great college defensive tackles? Two-time first team All American Terrence Cody* had 51 career tackles, ½ sack and no interceptions. Cody's entire career stats would've have rated as only Suh's third best individual season. LSU great Glenn Dorsey gets much closer to Suh than Cody and McCoy with 179 career tackles, 15 sacks and no interceptions. Much more comparable but, like McCoy and Cody, Dorsey's best statistical season (his Senior year) would have ranked third on Suh's list.

*It should be noted that Terrence Cody's career stats consist of only two seasons at Alabama.

So, why did Suh become a college superstar in only his last season despite having a statistical onslaught the year before in 2008?

Some argue that stats aren't everything. Circumstances, opponents and supporting cast factor in to how things tabulate in the record books. Take one individual from one defense and place him on another team altogether and you might get vastly different results.

This theory has merit, but I think the difference between Suh's notoriety and that of the others has most to do with the teams these players suited up for. Cody and Dorsey both played on National Championship teams and McCoy played on the 2008 BSC runner-up.

Suh shot to fame while leading the 2009 Blackshirts to first place in scoring defense, but it's easy to forget that, as a sophomore, he started on one of the worst defenses of 2007 and, arguably, the worst Nebraska defense of all time. It was a year in which the Blackshirts were humiliated by the likes of Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma State and many others. Even Ball State got into the act, scoring 40 points against Nebraska in a losing effort. It was enough for then defensive coordinator, Kevin Cosgrove, to strip the Cornhusker defenders of their black practice jerseys.

Coach Bo Pelini needed nearly two full seasons to turn the clock back on Nebraska's defensive prowess. So, while there were signs of what was to come in 2009 for Suh and his team-mates, 2008 produced a couple of defensive embarrassments (against Missouri and Oklahoma) that largely overshadowed what Suh was doing on an individual level.

But, despite the fact that most of the nation came to the Ndamukong bandwagon late (some didn't make it there until the second to last game of his career -- the Big 12 Championship against Texas) there were more than a few moments in 2008 that showed his potential.

Let's look at those statistics again. Specifically interceptions. As I said in describing McCoy's pick off of Tim Tebow in the BCS Championship, interceptions are rare for linemen. McCoy had just the one. Cody and Dorsey had none. Ndamukong Suh had four. One of those was even a pick-six in which Suh stiff-armed Colorado quarterback Cody Hawkins before spinning him through his tread on the way to the end zone. You can see it here. I apologize in advance for the poor video quality.

Suh picks off Hawkins

However, this was in a game between two unranked foes, one of which was even prevented from going to a bowl by its loss. The pick-six didn't make many highlight reels. But imagine if McCoy or Cody or Dorsey had done the same thing on one of those championship-caliber teams. We'd have seen the play over and over in heavy ESPN rotation.

Ndamukong Suh's notoriety grew exponentially the better Nebraska did as a whole. In 2009, the Blackshirts went to Blacksburg, Virginia and held Tyrod Taylor and the Hokies in check for 58 minutes in a tight, heartbreaking loss. They smothered Blaine Gabbert in a Columbia, Missouri monsoon. They squelched an Oklahoma offense in Lincoln, holding the Sooners to just three points for the first time since the 1990s. And then wrapped up the season with the two best defensive performances of the season -- the first in nearly upsetting BCS Championship-bound Texas in the Big 12 Championship and the second in sucking the entire life out of the Pac-10's second-place Arizona Wildcats by blanking them in the Holiday Bowl.

It took these national stages and dragging the one-time juggernaut of Nebraska out of it's Callahan-induced slump to finally show the nation just what kind of monster the Huskers had playing nose tackle the last four years.

As disappointing as 2009 was record-wise for Oklahoma, proper notoriety was simply never an obstacle Gerald McCoy had to overcome. The Sooners started the year ranked in the top three and they're expected to return to that neighborhood as soon as possibly next season.

Now, this is not some definitive argument for which defensive tackle is better, nor is it a suggestion to the St. Louis Rams as to whom they should bestow the honor of a #1 draft pick. But I think it sheds some light on how a statistical giant and a collector of copious amounts of hardware managed to get tangled up with a less-accomplished Conference brother in the eyes of the draft experts.

If I were St. Louis, I know who I'd pick. But, in reality, there's no wrong choice. I see both Suh and McCoy having long and illustrious pro careers.

For the time being, though, it's nice to see the Cornhuskers and Sooners slug it out again for high stakes -- even if it's only an arbitrary honor. Here's to hoping those stakes return again to the playing field. From the looks of both teams for 2010, that day ought to come very soon.