Today's 3:30 Read: Dodd on Tebow, Florida

3:30 isn't just the kickoff time for the Saturday SEC Game of the Week. It's the time of day when I post a worthwhile "must-read" you can use to make the rest of the day go by faster.

Dennis Dodd's column on CBSSports.com is a pretty good representation of what has been written by mainstream national columnists over the past 6 months -- and what you should expect over the next 6.

Dodd is ready to title a section of the column: "Tebow is one of the best ever." Then there's this, like this week's SI cover story, playing up the whole "off-field" stuff, which is as much a part of "mythic Tebow" as the on-field -- maybe more:

Go ahead, get it over with. Stick a finger down your throat and self induce if you must. Yeah, here we go again. We first got into this subject the day before the BCS title game eight months ago.

Nothing has happened to dispute that assertion. No scandal. No erosion of skills. Just come back with me to Atlantic City seven months ago when Tebow and his brothers were in town for the Maxwell Award ceremonies. With a night to kill and nothing to do, Team Tebow did what any red-blooded set of brothers would do.

They sat in their room and played "Catch Phrase." It's an electronic game about the size of a swollen hockey puck. It's great for family gatherings and dinner parties. But for a free night in Atlantic City?

Before it was over, the Tebows had a Catch Phrase entourage that included their body guard. Drink of choice: Bottled water.

"Everybody else was going to gamble downstairs," Tebow said. "We had like 10 people up there playing for like four hours. Most people are like, 'What are you doing? You have a casino there. You're up there playing 'Catch Phrase.'"

Let the kid have his fun. They have co-opted his name to sell product. "TeeBows" are women's panties being sold online. To quote the website, they are "the perfect complement to your Gator Game Day Outerwear."

They have carved a wooden statue of him clutching the Heisman outside popular Gainesville fish joint Ballyhoo Grill.

"I can't go up and look at it," the carvee said. "People would say, 'There's Tebow staring at his statue.' How weird would that be?"

They have run him ragged for autographs and interviews until he stepped back recently and realized he had no right to feel tired. It was a recent Saturday night. The Tebow family voted for Outback Steakhouse carryout. Tim thought he could zip in and zip out without being recognized.

A fawning father asked Tim to meet his son.

"I was thinking it was going to be a little boy," Tebow said. "He grabs this boy and brings him out in a wheelchair. He's here from Indiana and they're doing research on his spine. Who knows how long he is going to live? I realized, what's wrong with me. Why am I doing this? The kid was so excited he started to cry."

Anyway, the whole thing is worth a read.

Gator Gridiron 2009 Preview

UPDATE: EDSBS comes strong with the self-promotion that does this book justice.

Coming very very soon. The book is edited by Spencer Hall (of EDSBS) and I guess you could say that I wrote the "cover story" -- as Tim Tebow is on the cover of the book and I wrote the essay breaking down Tebow's place among all-time great college QBs. I won't ruin the ending.

Vote Tebow for a 2009 ESPY

Tim Tebow already has one ESPY, Best Male College Athlete from a year ago. Given that the Gators are heading for back-to-back championships this year, why not make it the same with another ESPY? Vote here.

Tebow: This Era's George Washington?

Spencer Hall at The Sporting Blog pays tribute to a great American on the 4th of July. (h/t: LSUFreek and his Photoshop skills.)

When Tim Tebow Met Barack Obama

April 24, 2009. The President greeted the Gators at the White House with his support of a college football playoff, but he WAS quick to point out that Florida would have won the title anyway. (The only team that worried me was Utah.)

The Plaque for The Promise

Premature? I don't think so. It was arguably the most impressive utterance in college football since Knute Rockne's (fictitious) "Win one for the Gipper."

It was like Joe Namath's Super Bowl III guarantee, only a little bolder, given that Tebow made the Promise with two months to go in the season, not in the days before the title game.

Jon Gruden Loves Tebow

"Concrete cyanide": I'm not quite sure what that means, but with Gruden on "Monday Night Football," expect plenty of discussion from Gruden of how good of an NFL player Tebow will be. (I fully expect and encourage Ron Jaworski to do the right thing and pick apart Tebow's mechanics, at least if Tebow has designs on being a full-time starting QB, rather than a Wildcat specialist.)

"Oh, And By The Way...": Tebow Comes Back

"Oh and by the way, one more thing, let's do it again. I'm coming back!"

Deadspin's Dash Bennett had the best overview of "what it all means" that Tebow was returning to college football in 2009.

(I merely dubbed 2009 "The Year of Tebow.")

About Tebow's John 3:16 Eyeblack

OK, so about Tim Tebow's "John 3:16" eye-black...

Some don't like the in-your-face evangelism. Unsurprising.

However, surprising even myself, I don't mind it, because -- generally -- he's so much less in-your-face than others...

...And much less in-your-face than you would expect from a player whose faith is as integral to his life as Tim (a development that made me re-think my own biases, to be honest).

In his first interview last night on the award podium, note the first thing he said. It wasn't "I want to thank Jesus." It was this:

"I just want to thank the fans. They are so unbelievable... I just love being a Gator and I thank all of you!"

From my observations -- and I have observed him a lot (specifically about this issue of proseletyzing) -- he seems to make an active effort to be inclusive. He doesn't -- and won't -- ignore his faith; he brings it up all the time. He simply does it in a fairly thoughtful/careful way.

Just got this message on my Facebook Wall from an old college buddy, with an Onion-like headline mashing up Tebow's faith -- and my faith in Tebow:

This just in: Shanoff Converts to Christianity - "Christ makes me feel closer to Tim."

Want to hear the most ridiculous part? When Tebow originally came out onto the field last night, I was like, "Hey, what happened to Phil 4:13? John 3:16 is so cliche."

(Seriously: It's like I was waiting for the guy in the rainbow wig who sits behind field goals to show up and do a little dance on the sidelines about it. He totally ruined John 3:16. Honestly: What was wrong with Phil 4:13? There was a nice little winning streak with Phil 4:13! Did he really want to jinx things by changing it up NOW? Come ON!)

On Heismans, Vince Young, Tebow AndElements of College Football Immortality

For all the Tebow slobbering I do, it's widely overlooked that I put Vince Young at or very very near the top of my "best CFB player of the last 25 years" list.

(Yes, even ahead of Tommie Frazier, who -- make no mistake -- was awesome. But just about as one-dimensional as you get. And while that '95 Nebraska team was arguably the Greatest Team Ever, it wasn't all because of Frazier. But if you're wondering, yes, I put Frazier in the Top 5.)

But, to reiterate: "Best ever" is derived, more than any other single factor, from mythology. But mythology itself is fairly complex.

The lesson of VY is that mythology isn't made from merely winning the Heisman. The Heisman is a resume item, which folks can break out to make the argument that so-and-so is among the best ever.

But championships matter. Playing big in big games matters. Stats matter... sort of. (You don't remember how many total yards VY had; you do remember that he had 500 yards of offense against USC. You don't remember Tebow's precise totals from last year; you know he was the first-ever to be a "20/20" player.) Which supports the following:

The transcendent talent you can see with your own eyes matters (like VY scoring against USC in the NCG). "Storyline" matters (Tebow's "Promise"; Tebow's handy circumcision work, representative of his larger philanthropical angle; he just won that "most inspirational" award).

Is it fair to credit Tebow with "well, he's already won one national title" in the same way Young has? Hardly. Young carried that UT team in a uniquely spectacular way; to his credit, Tebow was the offensive MVP of that Florida title team, even in limited action. But it's not the same.

I think everyone -- including Tebow -- knows that Tebow needs to be THE guy on a national-title team to truly rise to the top, or even the top tier. Consider how much he has been elevated simply by leading Florida to that comeback win over Bama in the SECCG.

Winning a national title as a freshman (and having a powerful role in it) and becoming the first player ever to win the Heisman as a sophomore opened up never-before-seen possibilities for Tebow this year, especially with a better team around him. From the debacle against Ole Miss to the Promise to the performance after that, the myth is elevated.

If he does win the Heisman -- or, more accurately, if he does win the national title (see the VY Corollary that you don't need to win the Heisman to be immortalized) -- the resume -- no, the mythology -- is stuffed so ridiculously that he elevates into that "Best Ever" conversation almost by default.

Where it gets more intriguing is whether -- realizing that he won't be a first-round NFL pick -- he comes back to Florida for his senior year.

(The NFL, amusingly, doesn't give a crap about college mythology, and the NFL teams that do -- see Vince Young -- usually make a terrible pick; there are exceptions, obviously -- see Barry Sanders -- but among QBs, mythology is almost always a terrible indicator of future NFL success.)

There has been some talk -- wishful thinking, more like it -- on Florida message boards about Tebow, Percy Harvin and Brandon Spikes all wanting to come back next year to make a run at real immortality: An unbeaten season (the first in Florida football history) and status as one of the greatest teams of all time. (Hey, it worked for the basketball team.)

If that happens, we're in truly uncharted territory and Tebow has a shot at permanent placement above all the other college football immortals. I don't think it will happen: Spikes is a 1st-rounder, and you don't waste that in football. Harvin is a likely 1st-rounder AND has a history of injuries; he better get into the pros now. Tebow could work his way into the 1st round (I'm convinced Bill Belichick schemes to take him) AND he just lost his mentor, Dan Mullen, AND if he wins the national title, what more can he do? (I think there's a part of him that thinks that leading Florida to an SEC title is already enough.)

Obviously, the notion that Tebow is, already, the greatest college football player ever is premature, at best. (And I'm obviously so biased as to disqualify the entire argument an irrational one.) In fact, it's fairly stupid to discuss it before Jan. 9. But he's already in the discussion -- with your Vince and Tommie and Herschel and Barry and Bush -- as being among the greatest ever. That's a hell of a thing before you've completed 3 full seasons.

It's all about the mythology.

First published here.

Tim Tebow, Professional Mohel

Yes, I publicly extended an invitation to Tim to perform the circumcision at my son's bris. (And why not?) Deadspin had some fun with that.

The Promise

To the fans and everybody in Gator Nation, I’m sorry.

I’m extremely sorry. We were hoping for an undefeated season. That was my goal, something Florida has never done here.

I promise you one thing: A lot of good will come out of this.

You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season. You will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season.

You will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season.

God bless.

-- Tim Tebow, Sept. 27, 2008

The Final Inspiration For This Blog

This pretty much sums up the hysteria.