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Here’s a blind comparison, similar to the kind the NCAA tournament selection committee uses in basketball. Only this one is between two college football quarterbacks:

Player A has completed 73 percent of his passes this season for 3,313 yards, 31 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Player B has hit on 72.5 percent of his throws for 3,320 yards, 29 scores and seven picks.

Pretty similar, right?

The only real difference is the amount of recognition each gets..

Player A is Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel, who stands a legitimate chance of becoming only the second man ever to win the Heisman Trophy in consecutive years.

Player B is East Carolina’s Shane Carden, who might just as well be the invisible man to anyone outside the sphere of his own campus.

This is not to suggest that Carden is the equal of Manziel or that his statistics have come against the same caliber of competition.

Clearly they haven’t.

But that doesn’t discount what Carden has accomplished while leading the Pirates to their current 8-2 record or the fact that it’s a shame so few around the nation have taken notice.

The same can be said for Carden’s favorite target Justin Hardy.

The junior receiver, who like his quarterback is in the process of rewriting the ECU record book, ranks fifth nationally with 87 catches. His 1,047 yards are also among the nation’s best and his 24 career receiving touchdowns –seven of which have come this year – are the most in school history.

And yet, when it came time for the Biletnikoff Award to name 10 semifinalists for the trophy honoring the nation’s top receiver, Hardy’s name was somehow left off the list. Just as Carden’s was omitted from the 16 quarterbacks still in the running for their position’s award, the Davey O’Brien.

Perhaps that will change next season when ECU moves up in competition to the conference formerly known as the Big East.

Or maybe it won’t.

Even if they don’t ever become more than just the best pass-catch combination nobody’s ever heard of nationally, Carden and Hardy have a chance to at least open a few eyes among the higher-profile ACC programs in their own state.

They’ve already teamed up to torch North Carolina for 55 points in a lopsided victory in Chapel Hill earlier this season. Saturday, they’re primed to put up another big number against an N.C. State team that has lost six straight and is eliminated from postseason contention.

A victory would mark the first time the Pirates have beaten both the Tar Heels and Wolfpack in the same season. That, along with the potential of a conference championship in ECU’s final season as a member of CUSA would be a fair tradeoff for any lack of individual acclaim, as far as Carden is concerned.

“Our goal entering this season was to win a championship,” the 6-foot-2, 218-pound Texas native said. “I think there were times we played like champions and there were times we should’ve stepped it up a lot more.”

One of those times was a 15-10 loss to Virginia Tech back on Sept. 14, a game in which Carden threw three interceptions and was sacked seven times.

It was a disappointing performance against one of the nation’s best defenses and a lost opportunity that likely cost both Carden and Hardy a shot at being mentioned in the same sentence as the nation’s elite.

Instead, they must now fight the perception that their impressive statistics are more the product of coach Ruffin McNeill’s pass-happy spread offense and subpar competition than an abundance of ability. That’s a determination that will ultimately be made by NFL scouts after next season.

As for now, all we can do is go by the numbers the ECU stars are putting up this season. And these numbers don’t lie, regardless of who you stack them up against.