Quote:Rakeem Cato doesn't want help.

You come up through the blight of Liberty City in South Florida. You endure the death of your mother at age 13. Your dad has been in jail. You show up at Marshall 155 pounds sopping wet. You might deserve a break.

Cato doesn't want one, at least in the comparatively tiny world of football awards.

"I like the way it is now. Gives me a chance to compete at the highest level. It gives our players that much energy to go even harder," says the Thundering Herd's quarterback.

Cato is responding to a reshaped Heisman question. As in, should there be a separate category for his level of competition? The query is half insult, half reality. We're talking about a big-play inspiration in green who was 84 yards short of throwing for 4,000 yards in back-to-back seasons. No returning FBS quarterback has thrown more touchdown passes (76) since 2012.

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http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball...en-leagues

I thought Cato was well represented in this article and responded well.

As to the article's conclusions and labeling C-USA as one of the "forgotten leagues", we might as well get used to that kind of thing. I don't like it either, as its disrespectful of every school in the 5 conferences he's referring to. But, I'm afraid its going to be the sport's writers collective mantra about C-USA, SBC, MAC and (they won't want to hear this) but the AAC and MWC for a long time to come. This autonomy thing is just going to grow that particular perspective for all of us, unfortunately.

Contract conferences get respect on the whole; individual schools get respect at the non-contract conference level. Boise State got respect but the WAC/MWC didn't; same for TCU and Utah in the MWC. The mainstream media will give certain schools some shine, but never the conference as a whole. Just the way it is.