AN UNFORTUNATE CASE FOR TEBOW
By mark rogers
December 12, 2008
Just like I wrote in a post on this blog back in August, the way the Heisman vote works is definitely working against Colt.
The factor is this - when two or more players from the same region or team are both deserving of the trophy, neither will take home the prize. Oklahoma's Sam Bradford has had an exceptional year, leading the Sooners offense which can now be called the most prolific in the history of college football.
And because there's really no other deserving candidate (that will be in New York - uh hmm Graham Harrell), those two will split votes and the award will go to Florida QB Tebow in a landslide.
It also doesn't help Colt's cause that he didn't play last week and all Tebow did was come-from-behind and defeat #1 Alabama in a spectacular fourth quarter performance on national TV.
I can recall nearly 14 close Heisman races that were decided by this "2 or more = 0" factor...as I like to call it. We could go way...way back. But let's just look at some of the more recent instances.
2004: Defending Heisman Trophy winner Jason White leads the Sooners to an undefeated regular season and Big 12 Championship. His freshman running back, Adrian Peterson, has one of the greatest rushing seasons in history. The national media was claiming Peterson deserved to win despite being a true freshamn (some said that's WHY he should win). Both deserved the award but being from the same team, the votes were split and USC's Matt Leinart won.
Now, it's not to say the Leinart didn't deserve it. He surely did. USC won the Title that year. But I'll bet White would've won it again on name recognition alone with the season he had if Peterson didn't have the season that he did.
2002: Iowa QB Brad Banks burst onto the scene and leads the Hawkeyes to a terrific season. Fellow Big 10 athlete, Larry Johnson, leads the nation in rushing with Penn State. They split the Big 10 vote and a virtual unknown from USC, Carson Palmer, won the award (it also didn't help that the two favorites heading into the season were teammates for Miami).
2001: Two QBs from the state of Florida (Rex Grossman, UF and Ken Dorsey, Miami) split the east coast votes allowing Cornhusker Eric Crouch to swoop in and win by a mere 62 votes. Nebraska didn't even win their division that year.
1967: Here's an older one with a current spin. USC running back, OJ Simpson (current because he's still in the news), has a breakout year, but Gary Beban, the QB at crosstown rival UCLA, has a pretty good season himself. Simpson comes in a close second and wins the award by 1,700 votes the next year. Had Beban not been around, we'd be talking about Tebow becoming the third player to win the Heisman twice.
Army's Glenn Davis probably could have won the award THREE times. He was in the same backfield with Felix "Doc" Blanchard and came in second in 1944 and 1945 before finally taking home the award in '46. Had Blanchard not been in the picture stealing all of Davis' votes...the three-peat might've happened.
And I don't make the argument for Blanchard since he won the award in 1945 and came in third and fourth in two other seasons...not quite as close as two second place finishes.
Look, I could go on and on, but I fear I may have already bored you enough. Other recognizable names that won in seasons like this include Danny Wuerffel, Billy Sims, Bo Jackson and Paul Hornung.
It's how the system works...it's how it's always worked.
The other interesting thing about the Heisman winner? The last winner to be an NFL MVP was Barry Sanders, and he won the award 20 years ago. So if Colt doesn't win, maybe it's a blessing in disguise - unless he's in contention next year, then we'll throw that argument out the window!
Colt winning would be huge for the state of Texas, for college football in Texas, for the Big Country and for all the folks out there who've supported and believed in him when no one thought he would start over Ryan Perilloux (and we all know how THAT turned out!).
Believe me, I'm one of those supporters. I covered Colt for the first time at the Gordon Wood Classic his junior year, and I could tell right away that the kid was special.
I was there when he signed with Texas and flashed the Longhorns "officially" for the first time.
I was also ridiculed for my belief that he would one day be the starting QB at Texas.
I hope I'm wrong more than anything and that Colt's name is called tomorrow night. But I'm also passionate about the entire college football spectrum, especially the Heisman Trophy...and knowing that? I don't want to get my hopes up.
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