Illustrated spotlight shines on Crabtree

By M7]ARC WESNER

Quick, everyone grab your current issue of Sports Illustrated.

What you’ll see is SI honoring NIU’s own Scott Crabtree as College Football Offensive Player of the Week for his performance against Nevada on Sept. 25th.

The numbers have been re-hashed probably a hundred times, but with the astronomical numbers that Crabtree put up, they need to be repeated one last time.

He completed 11 of 15 passes for 340 yards and five touchdowns, no interceptions. That is a career for some quarterbacks.

But ask him about the award and the senior from Louisville, KY points to the team and the fans before himself.

“It’s great to get the national attention and recognition,” Crabtree said. “What this team, this school, and this campus needs around here is to win more than they need people nationally recognized.”

Another point worth mentioning is that all the stats mentioned above equal out to a 373 passer rating. For those who don’t know what that means, it’s about the equivalent to going 6 for 6 in a baseball game with five home runs and a triple.

“I don’t know how to describe that,” Crabtree explained. “That’s just like Michael Jordan getting into that zone. It’s like everything just clicked and (I) couldn’t miss that day.”

As for Crabtree’s pass efficiency, he’s doing just fine in that category as well. As of the last rankings, he is in the top 20 in the nation.

All of this after finishing last season only starting in the last six games. In those games he engineered a 3-3 record while going 41 of 106 for 535 yards, three touchdowns and nine interceptions.

He earned the starting quarterback job this season last spring after improving his coverage reads, decision making, knowledge of the multiple I and by completing over 70 percent of his passes.

“All that Sports Illustrated stuff is good, but this team is good enough to win anywhere,” Crabtree said. “We need to get national recognition as a team, not individuals.”

A trip to the Las Vegas Bowl would accomplish that goal nicely, Sports Illustrated will be there too.