It is beyond me how no one has offered this boy a football scholarship, with everything g he did for that team.
Yeah yeah, I know it "wasn't in the script"
But it damn well should have been! He saved that teams ass more than once!
I love this show but OP you're right. Matt would've at least been offered a D2, NAIA scholarship. It reminds me of Luke who was offered nothing when he was the teams running back and best defensive player...and they won a championship.
shareMatt was a clutch quarterback with an unbeatable heart but Joe McCoy said it best when talking to Coach Taylor.
Joe: I think it's incredible how far you got; state even, after losing your star quarterback and having little Matt Saracen step in. It's amazing what you were able to get out of that kid."
Coach: Yeah, well, Matt is a great kid and a hell of an athlete.
Joe: That's the thing, though. Matt Saracen is not a hell of an athlete. As a matter of fact, he's very average. He's 5'9, weighs 145 pounds, and again, he's not a great athlete. Thing is, Coach, you have the very next Jason Street ready to step in and lead you to the promised land."
That's not a verbatim breakdown so all you scripties don't go bashing into me, but that's basically the conversation as it went down.
Matt was great because Coach T was able to pull that greatness out of him. At the end of the day, though, he was an average athlete (although he had a cannon for an arm, probably as good as Vince's, if not better) but he was an undersized, average athlete. I'm sure he could have received a small division scholarship, but he was more into art than he was football and never really asked to be put into the position he was placed into once Street got hurt.
As for Luke, him leaving Dillon (and the majority of recruiters who showed up to each game), playing on both sides of the ball at East-Dillon and then getting hurt with his hip stinger and playing on it which only aggravated the injury further, and the fact that, he too, was undersized, and that's pretty much why he chose to not chase after football after the TMU incident because of the conversation he had with Tim and because he loved Becky.
It would have been great if both Matt and Luke had went on to be successful in college football, but sometimes it just doesn't pan out for all players. Even some of the high profile "sure thing" players end up washing out once they step up into a bigger playing division.
Look how many first-round NFL picks have actually ended up being busts.
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Just a theory, but worth pointing out, nonetheless.
"coach T was able to pull that greatness out of him". Actually I think Jason Street did more for Matt's game ahead of those last 2 games in their state title season than Coach Taylor ever did. Ahead of the Mud Bowl semi-final especially, taught him how to "be taller" on the field and angle the passes so they wouldn't get intercepted (they'd either reach the receiver or go out of bounds) - Taylor realised this and was so impressed that he offered Street a QB coaching role there and then.
Presumably JD McCoy thought that this was down purely to Coach Taylor.
Matt was not conventionally athletic and had a noodle arm. You seldom saw him completing anything down the field, the state title team was about Smash and what appeared to be a good defense with how low scoring some of the games were. Matt was just smart and calm so he didn't make crucial mistakes or choke like JD did in the state title game.
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