A Heisman History Of Hose Jobs  Hijinks

I’ll have to bite my lip in work/social situations when someone feels sufficiently validated by the Academy or the Downtown Athletic Club to tell you that Crash is a profound piece

Ha. We studied “Crash” as part of a half-assed film class I took in law school. Of the 12 or so students, I was the only one who didn’t rave about it. It was a condescending, silly piece of garbage masquerading as a serious film.

My shining the silver bowl in 2005 has to cause Vince to well up.

because of these (and others) i always wonder why this award still has the prestige it does. it’s equal to the grammy’s being given to boy bands and pop skanks.

LT rushed for 500 yards against UTEP. Yes, El Paso UTEP. They should call it the Tomlinson Trophy for that.

I don’t get a strong feeling you bite your tongue a lot.

Strong column.

1997

One could consider Charles Woodson over Peyton Manning as an addition to your list. I was living in the Tennessee at the time, and the conspiracy theories regarding Johnny Majors somehow influencing the higher-ups at ESPN to pimp Woodson as a way of getting back at his Alma Mater were rampant in the back woods. Phillip Fulmer replaced Majors during the 1992 season, and he never forgot that.

Good write up.

Speaking of hose jobs, reminds me of the elevator joke and Turner Brown. Yeah, that Turner Brown. Which may be one of Big Jim’s aliases, come to think of it.

“The Aztecs hadn’t been screwed this thoroughly since Cortes.”

Nice.

For a tremendously talented player, Faulk had an uncanny way of getting misrecognized and overlooked. Osborne wanted him for DB at Nebraska. Which, in hindsight, is just bizarre.

i loved watching those SDSU games late night on espn2. the guy was unstoppable.

I don’t thank you enough for all the work you put into these pieces here, Scipio. Seriously, always a highlight of my day.

But you forgot Ricky Williams over Michael Bishop.

My take on Manning vs. Woodson (as I remember it – I was only 15) is that Woodson was the original “highlight” heisman. Reggie Bush before Reggie Bush. He struck the pose and that was that. Also, around this time you probably start getting a lot of heisman voters that didn’t remember the good old days of two-way players. So when they watched Woodson, they thought “wow, what a lockdown db! And holy shit, he plays receiver some too! OMG DID YOU SEE THAT KICK RETURN!!!!”

To this day, I can’t stand people adding kick or punt return yardage into the all-purpose yards stats for a player and making it sound like they just chew up field for their teams. Most any kick returner will get 10 yards before getting touched, and probably another 5 after contact. If you play for a team with a shit defense, you can return 5 kicks in a game for 75 yards without really doing much. Add in 50 from scrimmage and 26 receiving yards, and suddenly you have over two hundred all purpose yards!!!!! What an animal!

The only all purpose yard worth a damn is the sport-court at the residence inn when I have to travel all week.

I still tell people “but Ricky was a FULLBACK his freshman year” when they bring up Ron Dayne…not that they ever do.

Good read.

sorry my math isn’t all that great. point stands anyway.

A guy i know who played against Weinke said he was horrible and that you could tell what play he was going to run by how he acted in the huddle.

Archie Griffin had 22 less touchdowns than his team mate? Holy shit, that’s one of the craziest stats ever.

Crash sucked, American Beauty sucked, and Traffic was alright. Sometimes I just don’t know what these critics see. Karate Kid for life.

He managed just 46 yards against arch-rival Michigan and was outshined all year by backfield mate Pete Johnson (who scored 26 TDs to Griffin’s 4).

Surely you are making that up.

Great write up.

Ricky was a fullback his freshman AND sophomore years.

I still like American Beauty.

Desmond Howard is the one that struck the pose not Woodson, although maybe he borrowed it. I was fine with Woodson winning it and thought the Mannings were bitches for complaining. Woodson was the best player on the best team, that’s all it takes a lot of the time.

Other than Annette Benning getting plowed, nothing really stood out. Although I’ve often wondered if I’ll have that covetous eye towards my daughters friends. Knowing that answer, I’ve decided to not procreate.

Finally some people who agree with me about Crash and American Beauty sucking!

Weinke still gets my blood boiling. He had absolutely no talent or skill at all. Everything he ever did in college was thanks to the NFL team around him.

Crash was awful.

I thought Scott Frost deserved the Heisman in 97, but he wasn’t even one of the finalists.

Re:Griffin – WOW.

These back to back to years are amazing about who finished 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the Heisman.

1981 Marcus Allen, Herschel Walker, Jim McMahon
1982 Herschel Walker, John Elway, Eric Dickerson

I will start with 1990 on who won and who should have won or had a damn good argument.

1990 Ty Detmer-Should have been The Rocket
1991 Desmond Howard-tough to argue, bad year
1992 Gino Torretta-Marshall Faulk
1993 Charlie Ward-tough to argue
1994 Rashaan Salaam-Steve McNair thanks Texas
1995 Eddie George-Tommy Frazier was great too
1996 Danny Wuerfell-Jake Plummer(undefeated ASU team to Rose Bowl)
1997 Charles Woodson-Peyton Manning though I’m good with Woodson
1998 Ricky Williams
1999 Ron Dayne-Michael Vick (undefeated Vtech team to NC game with FSU)
2000 Chris Weinke-Drew Brees (led Purdue to Rose Bowl)
2001 Eric Crouch-Terrible year perhaps ken Dorsey
2002 Carson Palmer
2003 Jason White-Larry Fitzgerald
2004 Matt Leinart-tough to argue but Adrian Peterson was awesome frosh
2005 Reggie Bush-Vince Young
2006 Troy Smith-Darren McFadden
2007 Tim Tebow- could argue Darren McFadden
2008 Sam Bradford- could argue Colt

Great write up, Scipio. You know college ball. However, who would you have given the 87 Heisman to? Gordie Lockbaum or Don McPherson?

GroundHog -
 
2001 – I think the best alternative to Crouch as the winner was Rex Grossman, who just had a sensational year for Florida. But he was a sophomore and there was a sense that Crouch deserved it as a senior.
 
1987 – McPherson all the way, baby!

Giving the Heisman before the bowl games is bizarre to me. It’s one of those traditions that should change. I feel the same way about any of the awards, honestly. Bowl performance matters. Fun read, Scipio.

One of my favorite first sports books was Something for Joey, and Brian’s Song is still the greatest tv movie ever. Thanks for making me think of both.

I’d like to submit Ed Marinaro for “guy who got screwed out of a Heisman” but I’m too lazy to look up who beat him. I just know he had some mind-boggling stats for a RB who went on to be a cop on Hill Street Blues.

Trkhorn -

As an NU fan I appreciate the Frost in 1997 mention, but the real story that year is the fact that NU had a RB with over 1800 yards, had huge games against ranked teams (including over 200 in the bowl) with a bunch of TDs, especially long runs, and the guy played for an undefeated #1 team on the way to a national championship: Ahman Green. NU players won a bunch of hardware on the other side of the ball that year (Wistrom with the Lombardi), but somehow Green was off the radar. I personally think Manning should have won it, but the lack of pub for Green still bothers me…especially if Ingram wins it with inferior stats and a BAD Auburn game in a similar situation this year.

First of all anybody that says Woodson didn’t deserve it is any idiot. Are you guys the same idiots who think Suh should win. Manning was Chris Simms before Chris Simms was Chris Simms. Put up great stats when it didn’t matter. The only reason people believe he got robbed was because of how great he is in the NFL.

Groundhog I disagree with some of your picks.

‘99 – It should have been Peter Warrick. Best player on the nation’s best team. Although he has himself to blame for getting suspended for two games. If anybody watched the National Championship game that year, he pulled a Vince Young performance before Vince did.

‘01 – It should have been Grossman or Dorsey. I still don’t know how Crouch won it. One of the worst winners in recent memory. He put up like 12 TDs and 7 Ints and got blown out by CU in his last game. Horrible choice. Dorsey or Grossman would have been fine.

’02 – I though Willis McGahee would have been a good choice. Palmer deserved certainly, but I thought McGahee was awesome. A great running back who had an insane season. Split votes with Dorsey.

’05 – Bush, under the parameters of the award, won it fair and square and deserved it. I personally like the award given out before the bowl games other wise you would have the MVP of the National Title game win it almost every year. I am okay with giving it out before the bowl games. Bush was great and put up great numbers along with great plays. Both were worthy candidates and I though Bush had a strong season and my vote went to Bush if I had one.

‘06 – Troy Smith deserved to win it hands down. Just because he had a terrible National Championship game doesn’t mean he should not have won it. Won by a landslide and rightfully so.

’07- McFadden should have won it by a mile. Easily the best player by a mile, but played for a shitty team and got beat out by a guy who score 40 one yard TDs.

OD,

Good call on Ahman Green. One of the more underappreciated players in Neb history.

PT,

I couldn’t agree with you more regarding Woodson/Manning. The Manning thing is interesting because he couldn’t win a thing on Tennessee and it was the following year after he graduated that Tennessee had an undefeated season and NC with his 3 year understudy.

99 good call on Warrick
01 agreed. How Crouch won it is still a mystery. Neb win over OU was the reason, but he ranks up there with Weinke and Torretta as the worst winners in recent memory.
02 i thought of McGahee too
05 I disagree
06 McFadden was lethal that year too
07 No Question, Tebow while being a good college player will go down as the most overhyped player to ever play the game.

Why shouldn’t a boy named Suh win it?

Gotta agree with Lurker. Suh deserves it.

“I still like American Beauty.”

Good call Nordberg. One of the best American films of the last 20 years. Of course most of what I’ve watched over the last 10 years involved animated animals. I have a copy of the American Beauty sceenplay.

One of the talking heads on Sportscenter said the Heisman voters email their votes in. If they weren’t due until Monday, then I think that may doom Colt. I was hoping the voters mailed them in before the Suhturday Night Massacre.

Bush feasted on pedestrian “all-purpose yards” and highlights against a hapless Fresno State defense to prop up ESPN’s heisman campaign. Since Bush was not the MVP of his team, let alone college football, it should have gone to Vince. Or Jerome Harrison, the leading rusher in the PAC-10.

I would like to just remind everyone on this Texas site that Drew Brees graduated from Austin Westlake in the spring of 1996 and could not get his phonecalls returned by John Mackovic.

I love this shit—great piece, Scipio.

I have always found the Herschel Walker case curiously unexamined in articles like this.

Walker was robbed in 1980 by George Rogers after clearly being the Outstanding Player of the year—but I get the freshman bias.

Sophomore bias reared its head in the Marcus Allen over Walker vote a year later. Allen was deserving, but not over Walker.

In 1982, Walker received, of all things, a “lifetime achievement” Heisman. Walker was very good, but this was a make-up call. Eric Dickerson was the signature player of the year and Craig James’ carries probably cost him the award in the end.

My other travesty: 1989: Andre Ware. Yes, he put up pinball numbers, but it was not the winner or runner-up that was upsetting. It was Colorado’s Darian Hagan finishing FIFTH. Hagan was masterful (and would lead the Buffs to the title the next year) rushing and passing for 1000 yards. He never lost a conference game in the Big Eight—not one. Still one of the most underrated players of all-time, much like Scipio’s excellent Joe Hamilton example.

I thought the ’69 award to Steve Owens of OU was a sham. Beginning with two-a-day practices and going forward, the OU publicity department bombarded sportswriters, etc, with fluff about Owens, shamelessly pimping him and always calling him “Heisman Candidate Steve Owens”, as if that were his full and complete name.

While certainly a good player, his stats were distorted because of # of carries; I’m not going to look it up, but my recollection is that he averaged 35-40 carries/game, which greatly inflated his yardage totals. He probably averaged less than 4 ypc.

Workhorse, yes. Best player in country? I don’t think so.

I thought Worster and Bertelsen were both better players than Owens, but Royal didn’t believe in campaigning for players.

JMO.

CallKevin, it was Auburn QB Pat Sullivan who beat out the more deserving Cornell RB Ed Marinaro. The greater travesty is I’m old enough that I didn’t have to look it up. At the time, the thought was Marinaro had ruined his chances by campaigning for himself too openly, much like the player formerly known as Joe ThEEsman. Personally, I think Marinaro lost because everyone knows that Cornell is the Texas A&M of the Ivy League.

Jamaal Lord put up similar stats in 2002 as Crouch did in 2001 and everyone thought Lord sucked.

Ricky Williams lead the nation in yards from scrimmage and scoring in 1997 – despite his team being butt awful. I think he was the first guy in the modern era that didn’t win it who led both of those stats. He would have been better than Woodson, and possibly Manning.

Bates, Brees didn’t even get a Tech or Baylor offer. In retrospect that’s really one of the most puzzling recruitment stories ever.

jonestopten:
 
Thanks, man. We’ll part ways on Herschel though – particularly in 1982.
 
1981 – George Rogers led the nation in rushing and Herschel was a freshman. Herschel was clearly better, but the dynamics there were pretty clear. So it gets a shrug from me.
 
1982 – You need to look elsewhere with respect to Marcus Allen. He rushed for 2,342 yards, becoming the first player in NCAA history to rush for over 2,000 yards in one season. He also gained a total of 2,683 offensive yards. He led the nation in scoring.
 
Herschel wasn’t the player that he was and he didn’t have anything close to the year that Allen did. Allen also did it against a brutal schedule: USC, Washington, Tennessee, OU, Notre Dame, UCLA.
 
The Andre Ware thing was just about bludgeoning voters with statistics. No one had ever seen anything like that before and it was difficult to dismiss. Now that voters are a bit more sophisticated in understanding system QBs, you see a bit more appropriate cynicism. At the time though it was difficult to conceive that Ware wasn’t a worthy guy.

“I still like American Beauty.”

I really loved this movie until my life started paralleling it. I do need to buy a 1970 Pontiac Firebird though, and instead of turning away Mena Suvari I should ask, “what would Tiger do?” My only hope is that latent-homosexual-neighbor-Colonel-Chris-Cooper waits till January 8th before he channels his inner John Wilkes Booth…

jr69 -
 
Steve Owens had a weak field and better is as better does in the eyes of Heisman voters. The Texas guys didn’t even make the final top 10 in the ’69 Heisman voting. They also shared their load, so no one would have had eye popping statistics. Archie Manning was #4 in that voting though.
 
Sugarpants –
 
We were 4-7. No points for you.

“I really loved this movie until my life started paralleling it.”

Sadly, I know what you mean.

“They also shared their load.”

Bukkake was yesterday.

Lester, nice.

Scipio —

Nice points all around. My argument on Walker is largely that his Heisman was built on lifetime achievement, given that his win occurred in a year that Eric Dickerson largely outplayed him. Curious for a guy some tend to think of as perhaps the greatest college tailback to ever play the game.

I am not engaging in revisionist history on Ware; he actually deserved the award. Hagan’s fifth place finish is what I have always objected to…

Good shit, Scip.

“I’ve always wondered if Aggies hate LT for that.”

Pretty much. Fran owes LT the majority of his career coaching earnings. In truth, I actually like LT. One wonders if Ags will hate Brett Favre if and when the Sherman years go down in flames. Fortunately, I hate Brett Favre already.

To me, if you’re going in the moment, you pick Suh. He blew up, after an excellent season, at just the right moment.

If your going career service route, McCoy.

If you’ve got a hard on for offensive players, either Gerhart or Spiller will do the trick based on this season’s body of work and importance to team.

Ingram only qualifies as best player on the best team. I tend to believe each year’s Heisman is subjective, depending on the year. Some years, you have an obvious candidate for excellence (see Williams, Ricky), Other years it’s a career award, best player on best team, etc. But it’s relative to other considerations. In this case, with none of the National Title contenders shining the way 2005 Texas/USC, 2001 Miami, 1995 Nebraska, the best player on best team is not as important as other factors.

While I think Ingram is a good running back, he’s not even the best running back invited to the awards ceremony based on the body of evidence, and that alone disqualifies him. Given Spiller’s play this year, I think he should be invited over Ingram. Willis Mcgahee had a significantly better season than Ingram in a year when going into the voting, Miami looked like the CLEAR favorite to win the National Title. It got him fourth in the voting, behind Larry Johnson, who had the ignominy of finishing behind Brad Banks.

Only Tebow has less justification for being at the ceremony than Ingram. Ingram is a good running back on a good team. So was LaMichael James on Oregon.

Archie Griffin’s theft in ‘75 over Joe Washington was rivaled four years later by Charles White’s theft in ’79 over Billy Sims. Billy went for 280 (vs. Mizzou) and 240-something (vs. Nebraska) the final two games of the season, but after the Griffin fiasco, voters were hesitant to award another two-time winner (as Sims would have been).

Weinke was definitely a no-brainer call here.

Jones-

Darian Hagen may have never lost a conference game, but he lost his bowl game in ’89, lost to Illinois in ’90, lost to Baylor and Stanford in ’91 and was also tied by NU that year going 10 for 22 passing. He also lost his bowl game in ’91.

Hagen was a nice player, but I put him in the same category as Jamelle Holieway. Great runner and improviser. Not a crime he didn’t finish higher in the Heisman race, imho.

ponderos – Where have you been? Didn’t follow through with the mutual masterbation suicide pact with Carradine, huh..

i’ve thought about the brees thing a lot. he was a year older than me at westlake and even we didn’t know what we had. he tore his acl his junior year and aggy and horns laid off. i do believe with his connection to UT history (marty akins) that mack would have offered him. in that case we may have never heard the names of simms and applewhite.

Brees was hurt as a junior but he was an absolute stud as a senior and Westlake won state. So he didn’t lack for publicity.
 
He could run, he had a good arm, and he was ridiculously accurate.
 
It was a simple bias against his height. No more, no less.

I’ve always thought Brees lucked out.

He blew out his knee before his senior year, and that hurt him with most programs. IIRC, Shawn Slocum had him on the phone to talk to him about walking-on at A&M, put him on hold as another call came in, and then never got back to him.

Brees was kind of overrated as a college QB, imo. He ran the spread before the spread was pervasive in the game, so he put up pinball stats because of that. I always go back to his mediocre performance against Kansas State in the ’98 Alamo Bowl, where sportswriters overlooked his inability complete half of his passes because he led the game-winning drive. He benefitted from playing in a passing offense in the ground-bound Big Ten. He is similar to Kliff Kingsbury at Tech in that respect.

Beergut -

Nice to see that you’re still criminally dumb. Brees beat a 11-1 KSU team with zero offensive talent around him and he led Purdue to the goddamn Rose Bowl – where they had not been for 34 years previous and haven’t returned since.
 
And he’s such a Kliff Kingsbury type that’s he’s one of the three best QBs in the NFL, will be league MVP, and has the Saints undefeated.
 
Back into your clown car and out the door. We don’t do fucking stupid here.

The awful Drew Brees on display:
 

He made Vinny fucking Sutherland draftable.

He was a monster at Westlake in 95. They crushed a very, very good Abilene Cooper team that had future NFL starter Dominic Rhodes on it to win the state title. And just like Purdue, he didn’t have any real talent around him other than Seth McKinney and an assortment of slow, white dudes, at least one of which got significant game time, and nordberg, lowery, and I used to be able to actually compete with in pick up football.

He basically allowed Joe Tiller to retire a fairly wealthy man, assuming he invested well.

ponderos – Where have you been? Didn’t follow through with the mutual masterbation suicide pact with Carradine, huh..

“He benefitted from playing in a passing offense in the ground-bound Big Ten. He is similar to Kliff Kingsbury at Tech in that respect.”

Except the part where Brees might win the NFL MVP this year. And if he keeps putting up the numbers he’s been putting up the past few years, he’ll eventually be in the NFL Hall of Fame. Besides that, as well as being a much, much better college QB than Kingsbury, the two situations are identical.

Dude, just fantastic.

I sensed that Cortes pop coming two sentences prior. Perfect.

the height thing for brees can’t be the only reason mackovick didn’t offer. he’s taller than major.

I knew Drew Brees was from Westlake, but I didn’t know that he was Marty Akins nephew and Ray Akins grandson until they dedicated a stadium in Ray’s name recently. Drew accompanied Ray to the dedication.

We should have offered Brees a tennis scholarship a la Marquis Goodwin and track.

Brees and Kingsbury in the same breath? Christ. In that fashion, please tell me the parallels of Tom Brady and Cody Hodges.

Scipio – I didn’t know Ricky was to blame for our terrible defense. He was still a better college player than Manning or Woodson. He’ll his name is still all over the record books, something you can’t say for either of those guys.

Relevance is a factor in the Heisman – not just sheer performance. If you’re kicking ass on a pathetic football team, who cares? And how is your team being elevated?
 
Or are you a Paul Hornung for Heisman campaigner?
 
Ricky had no business winning the Heisman as a junior and only an unrepentant Longhorn homer would think otherwise.

Two different things are being argued.

I come from the school of thought that hates when a team’s record is used in an argument about who the “most outstanding player” is. It is not impossible for the most outstanding player in a league to be on the shittiest team. My senior year in high school the best AISD football player played for Johnston High School. They were so shitty they were the worst team in the AISD. That’s bad. Real bad.

If you’re talking about who the most outstanding player truly was in 1997 then Ricky Williams belongs in the discussion.

If you’re talking about viable Heisman candidates based on what the Heisman has historically been about, then clearly he doesn’t belong in the discussion. And that’s what the point of the original post was.

What Huckleberry said.

You’re defining the argument in terms of what you think the trophy should be awarded for, not what it is actually awarded for. It is actually awarded to the most outstanding player in the country.

You also fail to see the irony in calling out nepotism as a way to narrow the field but then you claim only a player from a top team can win it. Both are just strategies people use to sift through the litany of stats and potentially contradictory arguments to arrive at a simplistic conclusion.

It’s pretty clear from the data that Hornung did not deserve the Heisman – regardless of his team’s records so you’re setting up a straw man if you attribute that opinion to me. Hornung went on to be pretty good as a Packer, so it might not be as ludicrous as it looks. He was also a standout defender for the Irish.

Ricky, on the other hand, only led the NCAA in scoring and yards from scrimmage in 1997.

1995, I won the Heisman but this kid at Iowa State had more yards rushing. He had no O-line, no passing game, no defense to get him the ball back…I had tOSU’s o-line, and a dominant team around me. He rushed for 2,000 that year…in fact, he got over 2,000 the year before too and is the only rusher in college football history to run for 2,000 yards TWO YEARS IN A ROW.

Suck it Troy Davis!

The beauty of your lists and comments— if you are into immediate gratification— you’re desperate to win the Heisman. If you hope to have a long-term lucrative career in the NFL- RUN from it!!! Look how few Heiman winners have played, much less played well as pros.

I just think that the Heisman is a fucked up award. It has become the great college football award as Survivor is a great TV show to television programming. It has become meaningless in our time – certainly if you are a Longhorn.

How much is overnite shipping?

Hey! I just noticed your site: A Heisman History Of Hose Jobs & Hijinks | Barking Carnival when I was surfing around delicious.com. It looks as though someone appreciated your website so much they decided to bookmark it. I’ll certainly be returning here more often.

I used to be suggested this website through my cousin. I’m not certain whether or not this post is written via him as nobody else recognise such designated about my trouble. You’re incredible! Thank you!

Pretty component of content. I simply stumbled upon your web site and in accession capital to say that I acquire in fact enjoyed account your weblog posts. Anyway I will be subscribing on your feeds or even I achievement you get right of entry to consistently rapidly.