The Cynic’s Guide To The 2009 Heisman Race

Why are you posting this late? Why am I checking BC this late? I’m in Spiller’s camp. He is the most talented player in the country this year, and I think that is the criteria to use picking a winner. However, I think Colt wins in a carer acheivement moment.

I’d also go with Ingram, if for no other reason than consistency’s sake. The Bama offense is entirely predicated on pile-driver running, and I doubt Richardson would be putting up similar numbers.

I would still have held out for Keenum before today. But he was actively bad against UCF. If you want to talk comparisons: He had less yardage against the Knights than Colt did, and that was playing the entire game. In fact, at least half of the yardage came on the last two drives when UCF was playing the mother of all prevents. UH lost just as much because of their offense today as their defense.

If there were some way to quantify sentiment, it would be much easier to handicap this year’s race. Is it aggregate of heartbeats skipped during an average 2-minute soft-focus promo? Volume of tears shed over heartbreaking torments of youth? Number of foreskins on the wall?

It is interesting to see how much the Heisman “race” this year mirrors the race in general. Throughout fandom and media and the vast and multiple places where those two groups overlap, there’s a definite sense of ennui about. Where are our choirboy gunslingers? What the fuck is the deal with all this dreadful defense? Come back, USC! You can’t leave if you don’t take Ohio State with you!

I imagine the only post-season award outrage I’ll feel is if – that is, when – Taylor Mays is voted 1st team AA safety over Earl Thomas because OMG TAYLOR MAYS HITS LIKE A TRUCK and teams have decided they just don’t like that Thomas boy and they’re just gonna cross to the other side of the street in order to not have to deal with that hassle, man.

At the State Fair, they were handing out special edition Sports Illustrateds, focusing on the Heisman. There were some in depth profiles, and short blurbs for each winner. Here is what they have for Sam Bradford, as a “Heisman Moment”: “His wild, heels-over-head somersault near the end zone in the Sooners’ regular season finale against Oklahomah State, one play before a one-yard TD sneak.” In other words, a play where he not only didn’t score, he got flipped. They had to pick that moment because the typical Bradford play was efficient excellence, not improvisational genius. He stood in the pocket, protected, went through his reads and threw a bullet 30 yards downfield in less than 2.5 seconds about..I don’t know…150 times?

You’re probably right about Tebow and McCoy. Tebow is actually regressing as a passer, as his passing yardage has fropped from his sophomore year to his junior and now his senior season. He is Florida’s Cody Johnson, except that he gets more carries (about 17 per game, compared to the 11/game VY got in 2005). Do opponents tell their linebackers not to buy any pump-fakes from Tebow where he doesn’t lower the ball to waist-level before throwing? They should.

Taylor, you forgot to point out that he fumbled on the play. It just so happened to bounce harmlessly out of bounds. Typical bounce for OU and Bradford last year.

Not so much this year.

Scipio, your picks square with your well-known belief in the ability of the right RB to fix Texas’s ground game.

Suh is my choice, if only for his Whitman-like ability to live with contradiction.

11/3/09—After a late-night traffic accident:
Suh, a fifth-year senior and one of the team leaders, told police he swerved to avoid hitting a dog or cat crossing the street when his 2003 Land Rover hit the first of three cars on a Lincoln street. Police said Suh had alcohol in his system, but he tested well below the legal limit.

11/10/09—Before the KU game, when asked if the Jayhawks’ losing streak gave NU pause:
"You definitely want to go in there and, for instance, keep kicking the dog. You want to keep kicking it and keep moving forward and run it over and then go to the next one."

In years like this when no one (or 2 or 3) playes are seperating from the pack, I have no problem giving it out as a career achievement award. Add a few more games worth of stats (ie the amount of time McCoy has not been playing at the end of blowouts) and Colt’s numbers and the overall offensive numbers look quite a bit better.

Way, WAY too much politics involved in Heisman voting. Cheapens what was once a most prestigious award.

just give it to Muschamp

LOLLLERSKATES

I can see what’s going to happen. The Dec. 4 will be billed as “The 2009 Heisman Showdown”- Ingram vs. Tebow and McCoy vs. Suh. A beauty contest will then ensue for college football’s most prestigious award.

Ingram is a sophomore and, really, he’s not the best football player in the country. Neither is Colt and neither is Tebow. So who is? I don’t know, maybe Andrew Luck. I will diverge from you and support Suh for the Heisman, because it does have a career accomplishment aspect, but you should also have to play well your final year. Dude is really disruptive. Other than that — nobody really jumps out to me.

The winner of this season’s Heisman Award will go to whomever ESPN ordains so. Scipio I wish I could add something to the discussion, but I cannot get past that.

1. of losses notwithstanding, I think Golden Tate is the best player I’ve seen this year.

And I hate Notre Dame and am thoroughly enjoying Fat Charlie’s spotlight squirm.

Spiller is very good but I instinctively can’t support a candidate who gets pimped on a weekly basis with “total yardage stats”. OMG – Spiller had 162 yards of total offense! 81 rushing, 45 receiving, and 36 yards on punt returns (numbers made up but instructive nonetheless). That’s a nice game but not sockknocking.

If (when) Colt becomes the all-time winningest QB, that is going to be hard for the writers to ignore. And hey. His numbers may be down, but isn’t he still over a 70% completion rate?

The Heisman is a joke. And since its a joke, then it might as well go to a Longhorn in a year where there’s no clear separation between candidates.

The ou game notwithstanding, I personally think Shipley needs to be mentioned. But, right now I too am impressed with Suh. I love good defenses, and it is about time another defensive player wins this thing.

Are you people daft!?! Jerrod has this one in the bag baby!!!

What a bunch of uppity, whiny contrarians this thread is harboring, starting with Scipio, who might as well have thrown into the original post that he doesn’t own a television and all of his clothes are made of recycled hemp.

So the Heisman is a beauty contest? And it’s commercial? So what?

The reality is, what merits being a Heisman winner changes on a yearly basis, in a similar manner as college football. This year, it is going to be about the best player on the best team in the country. No one else is relevant beyond the 3 players from UF, Bama, and UT. Fine by me.

Mark Ingram fumbled at precisely the worst time he could have fumbled all season against Tennessee. He’s very fortunate Lane Kiffin is an idiot, or he wouldn’t be a realistic part of this discussion. The guy was averaging less than 4 yards per carry last night against MSU before breaking a 70 yarder late in the 4th when the game was already over. He has done nothing to merit jumping McCoy in this race and presenting otherwise is laughable bullshit.

Remove Ingram from that backfield and insert their backup in his stead. What happens? My guess is not much different. Remove McCoy or Tebow from their backfields and the argument doesn’t work out the same way. I realize all 3 teams are living by their defenses, but we’re not going to wake up on Heisman Saturday and watch them magically give the trophy to an entire defense. Or Renaldo McLain, or Carlos Dunlap, or Sergio Kindle.

McCoy had weak stats against OU, but he’s produced in every other game, similarly to Tebow and Ingram. Unlike the other two guys, McCoy has sat out the 4th quarter and much of the 3rd in all but 2-3 games. If Brown gave a shit about the award, McCoy’s numbers are off the charts.

Fantasies about Keenam and Gerhart and such are just that. Keenam played shitty yesterday. I watched the game and a big part of why they lost is because he wasn’t at his usual levels. He’s the beneficiary of playing in a terrible conference on a team with no defense. I like Gerhart, but knifing through a piss poor USC defense and having a big game against Oregon isn’t special enough for the guy to even make the trip to New York.

The award this season will take lifetime performance into account. To give it to a sophomore with decent numbers and no signature plays outside of a fumble against Tennessee will hard to do in the shadows of what both McCoy and Tebow have accomplished. Much like the year Eric Crouch won the thing, McCoy or Tebow will take it home for being on a good team, putting up good numbers and setting records for a career, and no other viable candidates can make a strong enough case to outweigh those factors.

Chizik is likely to stuff 9 in the box against Bama in an effort to stop the running game and not knowing any better way to do it. On top of that, Tebow and Ingram will split votes if Ingram continues to get the talk. I’d vote for McCoy, and without apology. Maybe you guys and Kurt Bohls see it another way, though.

CTJ —

That was a tremendously crusty, “you kids get off of my lawn” post. Well done.

You made bail, obviously.

I’d have Spiller on my ballot for sure. I’d consider Suh. I’d be willing to be won over by anyone at this point.

If Floriday wins the SEC title game and us the Big 12 title, I’ll be pullling for Tebow to win the Heisman. I’ll take the motivation over that trophy anyday. It means as much to me as a 1st team all Big 12 team selection, which this year will probably include Brandon Carter, Chris Hall and Jared Norton.

I think Colt deserves it. I thought it was between him & Bradford last year. He only missed it likely because he wasn’t spotlighted in the BIg XII CG because of a stupid tiebreaker.

Because there is no CLEAR frontrunner this year. Agreed on that.

The career achievement and the runner up last year should get every benefit of the doubt.

It shouldn’t be a career achievement award EVERY year. But absent the dominant star, that’s when that criteria should be given more weight than normal.

As Colt breaks a new record every week and climbs into a higher all-time pass yards/td/ leader he is CLEARLY the guy who deserves the lifetime achievement award. Right??

I’ll go with Ingram this season. Yesterday, I watched Stanford for the first time this season. Next year’s Heisman winner is Andrew Luck. That guy can play.

CloseToJumping -
 
That it will be awarded as a football lifetime achievement award does not mean that it SHOULD be.
 
Stop offering football opinions that suggest you’d be stupid enough for me to goad you into trading you Donte Stallworth in exchange for the greatest TE in the history of the NFL Tony Gonzalez and then use him to win the league. Oh wait, that happened. Thank you for your input, Matt Millen. This shows that you’re incapable of football growth and I may choose to limit all of your future posting capabilities to stadium cheers and naming the defense, as this is firmly in your gridiron wheelhouse.
 
Against the only legitimate defense that Colt McCoy faced all year he threw down the following statline: 21-39-127-1-1. Those are numbers so absurdly bad I can barely comprehend them. His longest pass was for 14 yards and he actively worked to hand the game to OU throughout. At one point during the broadcast, Cody Hawkins began laughing at him. However those numbers don’t even convey how qualitatively bad he played as he unsuccessfully tried to throw pick 6s on three different occasions only to have them dropped by Keenan Clayton and he fumbled another ball on the OU three yard line. The game was singlehandedly won by our defense and running game and anyone who views it differently is insane from unresolved syphilis. When he did successfully complete a pick 6 in the OU red zone, he was silly enough to ruin it by making the tackle ruining any aesthetic effect.
 
The rest of our schedule has been an assortment of rubes and mediocrities and he’s struggled with half of them. I don’t care if the OC is the problem. It’s not the job of the Heisman voter to hear our plaintive whine about ultimate culpability for Colt’s decline. If he were on any other team, we’d be laughing out loud at any notion of him as the MVP of the college football season.
 
Contrasting this with some babble about Ingram fumbling once in one game that Alabama still won while Ingram drops 150+ with regularity on a series of quality defenses is silly.
 
The Kirk (Kurt) Bohls attempted slam is amusing and your incomprehension between the distinction between the the guy not getting the award who was both MVP and the best player in college football in 2005 and a guy who is relying on memories of 2008 is as stupid as the rest of your diatribe.
 
Aside from these minor differences in opinion, we share much common ground on this issue.
 
Of course, I hope Colt wins the Heisman. The award is generally stupid and I’m all for racking up the hardware whenever possible if only for the recruiting and PR benefit.

If Ron Dayne can win it for his lifetime achievement, I have no problem with Colt winning it for his.

If we’re talking about “most outstanding player this year” — which I will define as consistent impact on winning games — then Ingram seems to be the leader. You could add the grouping of Colt/Suh/Spiller, and maybe Gerhart or Shipley, but for various reasons they haven’t been consistent enough to be the “most oustanding” player this year. But there is one other Longhorn I’d throw into the mix …

…. wait for it …

… Earl Thomas. In terms of making big plays leading to wins, can anyone claim to have had MORE impact on the undefeateds this year?

Oh man, the sanctity of the fantasy football league has been shattered.

Katy, bar the door and batten down the hatches.

Who cares about what SHOULD happen? We should have played for it all last year. McCoy should have won it last year.

I am not confusing this year with 2005. Your original post reads like something Kirk Bohls would offer us as he begs for reasons to not be viewed as a homer.

Ingram’s quality defensive opponents are who? Tennessee? Mississippi State? Ole Miss?

I like LSU’s fine, but even VTech is mediocre this year. Your actively pushing for a guy to win it because he’s going to rush for 1500 yards on a 14 game schedule. Congrats. His backup would do the same.

Shit, let’s vote for Dexter McCluster if we’re picking guys that have lit up Tennessee.

Bama has NEVER had a heisman winner. That will be the case this year as well. Colt wins in a down year unlike 2005. Agreed above, its crap that Suh wont win, but it is what it is…and if thats the case, give it to Colt.

I agree that Colt doesn’t have the numbers to support a win this year. But wanna know why I want him to get it? Just to piss off everyone who doesn’t root for Texas.

Tell Tim Tebow to get the fuck out of my light.

I agree that Colt doesn’t have the numbers to support a win this year. But wanna know why I want him to get it? Just to piss off everyone who doesn’t root for Texas.
 
OK, that works for me.

I think the “Bama gots no Heismans” thing will work in Ingram’s favor.

I haven’t seen anything out of Ingram that makes me think he’s worthy of the Doak much less the Heisman.

To put Ingram’s year in context, check out Ricky Williams’s numbers from the three game stretch including Rice, Iowa State, and whoever was next. I think those were roughly equivalent to Ingram’s whole season.

I’ve been reliably informed by Domerfan that Clausen is the only QB even worthy of the Heisman this year, followed closely (but not too closely) by Golden ‘Golden Boy’ Tate (feel the racism). Anyone else under consideration is a pretender and should withdraw in acknowledgment of Notre Dame’s greatness. Really. Just check out blue-gray sky, it’s all there.

Also, Tim Tebow is an apostate.

ps. nakaramadamadingdong suh, or cj spiller, if it were actually about best player

Sugarpants -
 
If he were competing with Ricky Williams that might be a relevant point.

The Heisman is a joke. Period.

Colt far and way deserved it last year and got screwed because of Blake Gideon and Bob Stoops running up the score on terrible teams.

That being said, I don’t want Colt to win it. While I feel he does deserve an award for his play for this team, the Heisman is only about 1000x worse than the Madden Curse. Almost every guy that wins that stupid award goes on to suck in the NFL. That guy’s team almost always ends up losing in their bowl game, too. Only Leinart has overcome that in the past decade and it took facing the worst BCS team in history to get it done.

Let whomever wins the SEC championship game win the award. And then let the Horns and Colt go mudhole them in the title game. Then Colt can laugh in their face while the confetti falls just like Vince did.

Nothing proves better that the Heisman is joke than the fact that Troy Smith has one and Vince Young doesn’t. That said, I’m with mac.

i’m with you on ther Spiral Out. I want Colt and the horns coming into that game with lots of talk about the REAL national championship game being the SEC title game. I also don’t want the burden of the heisman on Colt. He had that earlier in the year and it wasn’t working so well for us.

Suh is deserving, but ain’t going to get it in that he doesn’t have the eye popping stats Casey Hampton had or some guady Sack statistic. Ingram is a good, but not superlative running back, again worthy of the discussion, but he hasn’t been dropping 200 yard games with regularity to make the sportscenter crowd properly horny.

Which leaves McCoy and Tebow and the fact that this year will probably be a lifetime achievement award. Which augers well for McCoy, since Tebow already has one. But I think to make the voters feel more at ease, somebody in Belmont is going to have to convince Mack to run up the score on somebody to pad McCoy’s statistics. Otherwise, they may buy Scip’s argument about the OU game and hand it to Ingram as a default. Tebow, even in his elevated holy state, has sucked all year and is going to make it hard for anyone to argue his case.

Why the fuck do you live in S.F. if you despise hipsters? That’s like moving to Hawaii because you hate surfers.

Shipley.

magnus -

I live in a hipster-free neighborhood. We set claymore mines around our perimeter like Charlton Heston in The Omega Man.

The Heisman has been a career achievement award for many, many players who didn’t have careers as good as Colt’s. It would be typical if that suddenly changed now, in a year where there aren’t a lot of good options. Tebow already has one and Ingram, while a quality back, isn’t really “Heisman good” (question, who would you rather have on your team, Mark Ingram or Jamaal Charles circa 2007?).

Ingram will win. He comes the closest to meeting the litany of ambiguous criteria used by the Downtown Athletic Commission through the years.

We’ll forget about him the way we’ve forgotten about so many others through the years.

I’d vote for Suh. To me, he’s the Most Outstanding Player, pure and simple.

But just like way more than half of Division I’s teams begin the year not actually playing for the championship, way more than half of Division I’s players begin the year not actually playing for the Heisman.

Mostly, this would be a good year for the DAC to say, “Vince, truly, humbly, sincerely, we cocked that up a few years back. For real right? Here, take this.”

I honestly think Colt will win. This is the perfect career achievement year.

He will have more wins than any other QB (that’s enough for a lot of folks), add in the ridiculous completion percentage (another record), the respect of current and former players (including rivals), and some potential sub conscious sympathy votes from the BCS screw job from last season.

Colt wins, and will win by a larger margin than you think. Mark it down.

How about the fact that Ingram had 30 yards on 16 carries against Auburn? Consistency in all of their big games? Not so much. This award should go to Gerhart, but all of the voters wouldn’t dare vote for a player on a team with 4 losses… Thus the Heisman will not be relevant this year. Who cares.