I've never written in to an advice column before, but there's an issue that's been bothering me recently which I'm wary of revealing to friends.

You see, I'm an expatriate dawg living in the Chicago, and recently I've been bragging about our freshman 1,000 yard rusher (who will run for more than 1,600 if he continues to rush for over 154 a game) Knowhson Moreno. They are always impressed, and this gives me a sense of well-being. However, I have a secret - Moreno is in fact a RED-SHIRT freshman.

I know, I know. But a little white lie never hurt anyone, right?

Here's my question: Should I feel bad about refering to Moreno as a freshman? Should his accomplishments really be compared to other freshman like Walker and Brown? Am I being dishonest when I leave out the "red-shirt" part?

Thanks, Dawgsports.

Intellectually Dishonest in Chicago

A few years back, when my brother-in-law, Travis Rice, and I were back in the Classic City for an alumni function, Trav struck up a conversation with a student. When asked her class standing, the young lady replied that, due to her extensive advanced placement credits from high school, she was "a first-year sophomore." Trav, never one to mince words when encountering overinflated egos in need of puncturing, informed her: "You're a freshman."

For a student-athlete (which is, in many instances, itself something of a misnomer) on scholarship, class standing is a matter of eligibility. Knowshon Moreno has as much of his eligibility remaining as a second-year student who saw no playing time in his first year as he would if he were a first-year student who made it onto the field during his rookie campaign. In that sense, it is fair to characterize him as a "freshman," and removing the qualifier "redshirt" is not as egregious an omission as, say, deleting "vice" from in front of "president."

Is Knowshon Moreno's 1,000-yard season as a redshirt freshman really the same as Herschel Walker's 1,000-yard season as a true freshman? No, it isn't, not any more than Matthew Stafford's freshman season as an early enrollee who arrived on campus in January before taking the field in the fall put him on an even footing with someone who first came to the University of Georgia in late summer.

If, however, Moreno manages to break the Goal Line Stalker's freshman record of 1,616 rushing yards, it will be for reasons other than his redshirt experience. In Herschel's day, the Bulldogs played an eleven-game regular season with no conference championship game and a player's performance in a bowl game did not count towards his season totals. (For what it's worth, Walker rushed for 150 yards and two touchdowns in the 1981 Sugar Bowl, 84 yards and two touchdowns in the 1982 Sugar Bowl, and 103 yards and one touchdown in the 1983 Sugar Bowl, but none of these numbers counts towards Herschel's career totals.)

Knowshon Moreno gets the benefit of a twelve-game regular season schedule---an advantage comparable to that which earned Roger Maris an asterisk when he broke in the 162-game 1961 baseball season a record set by Babe Ruth in the 154-game 1927 baseball season---and his postseason numbers will be tallied, as well. A bowl game is all but assured and a conference title tilt remains a real possibility.

In short, if we make too much of every meaningful distinction between the world as it existed in 1980 and the world as it exists today, the asterisks will abound. What matters is that Herschel Walker was then a man among boys; in the due course of events, Knowshon Moreno may become a dominant force in his own era, as well.

Knowshon Moreno is a freshman. This is a fact. While that fact could be stated with greater precision, the ability to qualify his class standing does not render the reality of that class standing untrue. I probably would include the term "redshirt" for the sake of full disclosure, because I do not believe Moreno's achievement is diminished by the presence of that modifier, but you are not lying by omitting a datum which draws a distinction but, at the end of the day, does not make a meaningful difference.

Sincerely,

T. Kyle King
Dawg Sports