2009 Heisman Finalists
Breaking down the Big Five
By
Pete Fiutak
At the beginning of the season, this was supposed to
be one of the greatest Heisman races ever with Sam
Bradford, Tim Tebow, and Colt McCoy expected to lead
a three-man dogfight for the big prize. Bradford
hurt his shoulder, Tebow was mediocre, and McCoy
failed to have a Heisman moment in a year with no
one stepping up and becoming the signature player
who had to be voted for. While the race might not be
among the heavyweights, it could turn out to be one
of the tightest votes ever.
With the votes in, McCoy and Tebow were given a
plane ticket to New York as two of the finalists,
along with Stanford RB Toby Gerhart, Alabama RB Mark
Ingram, and Nebraska DT Ndamukong Suh in what should
be a nail-biter that could go any way ... at least
among the three non-quarterbacks. McCoy and Tebow
likely received enough third place votes to warrant
bringing their star-power to the show, but a huge
stink would be raised if either one of them
won; they simply weren't as good this year as the
other three finalists.
So who's going to win it? Here's the breakdown of
the five finalists with a best guess on how the
pecking order will go, but first, the five players
who did get a spot among the finalists, but
could've.
The Top Five Heisman Options Who Missed Out
1. C.J. Spiller, RB Clemson
He finished fourth in America in all-purpose yards
and was dynamic in carrying Clemson to the ACC title
game. He finished the season with 233 yards and four
touchdown against Georgia Tech, but no one saw the
ACC Championship against Georgia Tech because the
world was riveted to Nebraska's battle with Texas.
2. Case Keenum, QB Houston
The numbers are staggering. 5,449 yards, 43
touchdowns, nine interceptions,71% completions, four
500-yard games, three 400-yard games, and in every
game but one, a win over SMU, over 300. But his
candidacy lost steam after Houston lost to UTEP,
UCF, and in the Conference USA championship to East
Carolina. However, in the three losses, Keenum threw
for 536 yards and five scores against the Miners,
377 yards and three scores against the Knights, and
527 yards and five touchdowns against the Pirates.
3. Dion Lewis, RB Pitt
The superstar true freshman ran for 1,640 yards and
16 touchdowns, and caught 24 passes for 190 yards
and a score. He ran for 100 yards or more in nine
games and in each of the last seven games,
highlighted by a performance in what turned out to
be the Big East championship with 194 yards and
three scores in the heartbreaking loss to
Cincinnati.
4. Golden Tate, WR Notre Dame
No receiver in the top 75 in catches averaged more
yards per catch, and no one was more thrilling. Tate
caught 93 passes for 1,496 yards and 15 touchdowns,
scoring at least once in each of the last eight
games, finishing off with a bang making ten grabs
for 201 yards and three scores.
5. Jimmy Clausen, QB Notre Dame
He finished the season ranked second in passing
efficiency with 28 touchdown passes and four
interceptions. (Boise State's Kellen Moore finished
first in efficiency and threw 39 touchdown passes
and three picks.)
The Finalists, Ranked By Where They're
Expected To Finish
5. Tim Tebow, QB Florida
Tebow doesn't deserve to be here, likely
receiving most of his votes from those too impatient
to submit their ballots until after the final
weekend of the season. He finished 84th in the
nation in passing, but he was eighth in passing
efficiency, and 31st in total offense. Make no
mistake about it, he had a good year by most
standards, but the 18 touchdown passes, five
interceptions, 859 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns,
were a bit underwhelming by his own ridiculously
high standards, considering he threw for 3,286 yards
and 32 touchdowns with six interceptions, and ran
for 895 yards and 23 scores, in his Heisman-winning
season of 2007.
He deserved the Heisman more last year, when he lost
to Bradford (and would've won it had the voting been
done after the bowls), with 28 touchdown passes and
two interceptions before the BCS Championship, to go
along with 12 touchdown runs while leading the
Gators to the SEC championship. And there's the
biggest problem. The X factor in Tebow's candidacy
is the nebulous leadership aspect. It has become a
go-to cliché, but yes, he really did will his team
to an SEC title and a national championship last
season highlighted by a brilliant performance
against Alabama. This year, he failed to get the
Gators past Alabama and will be off to the Sugar
Bowl, and that ended the campaign. To be fair, he
had to fight through a concussion and the loss of WR
Louis Murphy and Percy Harvin to the NFL, but in the
end, the screaming and yelling and the "Let's Go"
aren't going to be enough to get him a second
Heisman.
4. Colt McCoy, QB Texas
If only he had done something more
memorable in the Big 12 Championship than lazily
throw the ball out of bounds with barely a flicker
of a second still left on the clock, he'd be the
winner. He's a great guy, he could've won it last
year and no one would've blinked, and he's now the
all-time winningest quarterback in FCS history, but
the stats don't even come close to his previous
campaigns.
That's not quite fair; the statistics might not be
as strong, but unlike the previous three years he
got his Longhorns a Big 12 title and to the national
championship. If he goes lights-out in Pasadena and
leads the team to a win over Alabama, he might
suffer the same fate as Vince Young in 2005 and Tim
Tebow last year and be the one who would've won the
Heisman had the voting been done after the bowls.
Also, to be fair, he was asked to change his game
this year.
Unlike the previous three seasons when he had to
carry the running game at times, especially last
season when he ran for 573 yards and ten touchdowns,
and threw for 3,445 yards and 32 touchdowns and
seven interceptions before the Fiesta Bowl win over
Ohio State, he was asked to run less to try to stay
healthy in a national title run. Mission
accomplished, but the stats took a hit. 175 of his
348 rushing yards came against Texas A&M, and he
threw 27 touchdown passes with 12 interceptions with
three coming against Nebraska in the Big 12
Championship. He only threw for 127 yards in the win
over Oklahoma, 184 against the Huskers, and 171
against Oklahoma State. Most likely, he received
most of his votes from those who submitted their
ballots after the Texas A&M game.
3. Toby Gerhart, RB Stanford
Gerhart carried the Cardinal to a special
season with wins over USC and Notre Dame on the way
to the Sun Bowl. Not only did he come through in the
biggest games, he was steady and consistent on the
way to leading the nation with 1,736 rushing yards
and 26 touchdowns. However, he's second in the
nation behind Fresno State's Ryan Mathews in yards
per game and averaged a good, but not great, 5.58
yards per carry. He ran a whopping 311 times to get
the huge yard total, while no one else got over the
300 mark. In other words, for good and bad when it
comes to the Heisman race, his biggest attribute was
being a workhorse.
In the two games he didn't get 100 yards (Wake
Forest and Oregon State), the Cardinal lot, while
the three lowest carry totals of the season came in
three losses. Even so, he was fantastic and stepped
his game up big-time over the second half of the
year. With everyone focusing on stopping him, he
managed to rush for 223 yards and three scores
against Oregon, 178 yards and three touchdowns
against USC, 136 yards and four touchdowns against
Cal, and 205 yards and three touchdowns against
Notre Dame in the last four weeks. He also threw a
touchdown pass against the Irish.
But he suffers from the Stanford season ending
early. While the four other Heisman finalists got
one final game that everyone paid attention to, for
good and bad, the Notre Dame game had to stay fresh
in the voters' minds. He'll likely get plenty of No.
1 votes, but not enough twos and threes to win the
Heisman.
2. Ndamukong Suh, DT Nebraska
The race was over. Mark Ingram had the
Heisman signed, sealed, and delivered at around 7:30
EST last Saturday night. Suh might have changed that
roughly three hours later. The uninitiated to Suh's
greatness got a taste of the best defensive lineman
in college football over the last two years in his
virtuoso performance.
This is a 6-4, 302-pound defensive tackle who
returned two interceptions for touchdowns last
season. led the team in tackles, which is unheard of
for a defensive tackle, and had finally grown into
the promise and potential that went untapped during
his first two seasons. This was, again, a
defensive tackle who made 12 tackles in a win
over Kansas last season with 2.5 sacks and was
steadily dominant throughout. Inexplicably, he chose
to come back for his senior season when he would've
been a sure-thing top-five draft pick. And now he's
deep in the hunt for the Heisman.
He has already won the Nagurski, is a lock to win
the Outland, the Lombardi, and every other defensive
award he's able to win after wowing America with a
12 tackle, 4.5 sack, seven tackle for loss game
against Texas that had everyone figuring out how to
spell his first name. While the Big 12 Championship
showed what most already knew, that he's the No. 1
pro prospect in college football, he had come up
with strong game after strong game all season long
with 82 tackles, leading the team for the second
year in a row, with 12 sacks, ten defended passes,
23 tackles for loss, 21 quarterback hurries, and
three blocked kicks. In a year when no offensive
player was head and shoulders above the rest, there
will be a major contingent of voters who will be
looking to make a statement, while also voting for a
defensive player worthy of the honor of being called
the "most outstanding college football player in the
United States for 2009."
1. Mark Ingram, RB Alabama
He's 12th in the nation in rushing yards
per game, is 31st in all-purpose yards, struggled in
one of the biggest games of the season rushing for
just 30 yards on 16 carries in the near-miss that
everyone saw against Auburn on Thanksgiving weekend.
And then came the SEC Championship.
Was he going to play? That was the biggest question
mark going into the showdown against Florida after
Ingram suffered a hip injury against Auburn. All he
did was gash the Gators and their defense that was
No. 1 in the nation in yards allowed, No. 1 in
points allowed, No. 1 against the pass, and No. 8
against the run for 113 yards and three touchdowns
on 28 carries, and caught two passes for 76 more
yards. But coming up big in big games wasn't new to
Ingram.
150 yards and a touchdown against Virginia Tech. 172
yards and a score against Kentucky. 246 against
South Carolina and 144 against LSU. Ingram wasn't
always needed, he got minimal work against FIU and
North Texas, but when the team needed him the most,
and when the passing game was sputtering and
struggling during a Greg McElroy crisis of
confidence, he delivered and carried the offense to
the SEC Championship game undefeated.
The big knock against his candidacy for the Heisman
is that his team just might be too good. After all,
Trent Richardson averaged 7.3 yards per carry
against Florida and Roy Upchurch averaged 8.1, and
each one has been effective all year when given a
shot. But because Alabama dominated Florida and is
now considered the No. 1 team in the nation by far,
and because he was so tremendous against the Gators,
and because he had moved into a front-runner's spot
before the Auburn game, regaining it by halftime in
Atlanta, the sophomore should end up being the
Alabama's first Heisman winner.