First off, congratulations to Mark Ingram on his Heisman victory. The award was well earned and despite my personal feeling about who should have won, I can't bring myself to be too upset about him winning. Ingram proved to be an absolute monster for the best team in the country all season (as I said all year) and his speech showed just how important and special taking home the Heisman was to him. However, the voting for this year's award proved that there are some serious problems with both the actual voting process, and how voters fail to acknowledge the actual spirit of the award.
According to the Heisman Trust mission statement, "The Heisman Memorial Trophy annually recognizes the outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity". It's not the full quote for brevity's sake, but nowhere in the statement is there a mention of the award winning player must play for a top ranked or dominant team. When I fail to find that concept anywhere in mission statement it makes me wonder where that ridiculous concept came from and why voters have that idea in their heads. "Outstanding college football player" means exactly that, outstanding player; not the best player on the best team. A head to head comparison of the two invited running backs shows that Toby Gerhart's numbers absolutely dwarfed Ingram's. Even the inexplicably uninvited C.J. Spiller had more TD's than Ingram. Unfortunately, it's abundantly clear that voters are focused more on a combination of team wins and total stats, as opposed to only individual stats as is stated in the mission statement. What else can explain Tim Tebow being invited over a Spiller, Case Keenum, Kellen Moore, or Jimmy Clausen? Each of these players had better, more consistent seasons as individuals but were punished because of the less than stellar performance of their complimentary parts. (Clausen-porous defense, Keenum-"gimmick" offense, Spiller-everyone else around him was mediocre, Moore-...I dunno, people hate Boise State?) I know why Tebow was invited, and it's another serious problem with the Heisman voting; career achievements considered for a single season award.
Read the mission statement for yourself, here's the link. I defy you to find a line anywhere in the statement that says that a player's career accomplishments are to be factored in when voting for the present season's Heisman Trophy. Don't strain yourself looking too hard for that part, because it's not there. It's unquestionably a factor in voters' minds, but that doesn't make it right. Tim Tebow was a complete ghost in several games this season, but because of a few stat padding games early and his image as the Second Coming, he got a ticket to New York. Concussion or not, Tebow's stats took a serious nosedive from previous seasons. Add in the fact that he wasn't even the most outstanding "player" on his team (the defense was the best "player") and you've got a head-scratcher. Obviously the voters realized as much since Tebow only received 390 total votes (43 1st place votes is a complete joke though). It would also explain why Ndamukong Suh finished over 300 votes behind Colt McCoy, even after Suh made the Texas QB his personal tackling dummy in the last game of the season. I'm not hating on McCoy by any means; in fact, he was my preseason pick to win the Heisman. What I am saying is that Suh made McCoy and Texas look as bad as every other team he has faced this season, while Colt only showed up in 1 of 3 big games this season (non-existent against Oklahoma and Nebraska). But how can Ndamukong Suh ragdoll McCoy and still end up significantly behind him in the voting? Easy, it's because he plays defense.
I probably should have said just to leave the Heisman website open, because I'm going to reference it again. We've reached a point where this award is given to either the best quarterback or running back in college football without fail. That's it, no exceptions. Despite being an absolute defensive freak, capable of shutting down even one of the best offensive players and his team, (you know, that McCoy guy that finished ahead of him in the voting) Ndamukong Suh had no chance to win the Heisman. Yes, he was invited to the ceremony in New York, but we all know his presence there was simply posturing by the Heisman trust to keep the state of Nebraska from seceding from the U.S. Heaven forbid a player who can keep a Heisman favorite from doing anything by shedding double teams and tossing him around have a equal chance to win as an offensive player who is surrounded by other superstars to pad his stats. Whoever said "defense wins championships" clearly doesn't vote for the Heisman Trophy.
Huh, guess I was wrong in saying I couldn't get too upset by Ingram winning.
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