There are too many random tidbits from Saturday night’s Heisman presentation to coherently place in the event’s recap, so they will be presented here. Randomly.
Camaraderie
A trend emerged throughout the night: the five finalists had grown close during their time in New York. Tim Tebow and Mark Ingram prayed together; they all went to the Empire State Building; Tebow and Colt McCoy grabbed lunch at a deli; and not a negative word was offered throughout Saturday evening. Ndamukong Suh, essentially disregarding his own candidacy, even told reporters that he thought Ingram and Toby Gerhart were the two most deserving finalists.
And so when each of the five took to the stand before the press gaggle after the presentation, mutual respect prevailed. The aura surrounding all of the proceedings was highly sentimental. It was a competition for arguably the top award in American sports, and you would not know it.
The Winner
I have spent much of the past week picking fights with people who put Ingram ahead of Gerhart. Mainly, it was due to ignorance, since many—including voters, by their own admission—did not watch much of Stanford. But along the way, you lose track of the individuals. And maybe it was because of, again, the atmosphere of the night, but after two hours, my respect for Ingram rose exponentially.
He is a young man who embodies many of the traits Stanford fans like in Gerhart: intelligent, classy, devoted to his school and team. He’s gone through personal trials: his father is in jail, and he started at Alabama as the only northerner on the squad—a bigger deal than one may think.
The impact of the night was evident. Tebow had to take him backstage before the ceremony because of his nerves, and when his name was called, the emotions came flowing out. He had to stop before he started because he kept getting choked up. He knew what the award meant to Alabama, which had not had a Heisman winner despite its rich football history. He knew what it meant to his family. And he knew what it meant for him, standing alongside Heisman winners dating back over 50 years as he gave his acceptance speech.
Good on you, Mark Ingram.
Academia’s Victory
Too often, the college football world loses sight of the first part of the term “student-athlete.” Not tonight.
Gerhart’s academic story is well known—he’s a management, science and engineering major taking an absurd 21-units this quarter. But all of the finalists had academic merit. Ingram made the Dean’s List, while Suh chose Nebraska because of its impressive engineering program. McCoy carries a 3.33 GPA and was an Academic Heisman finalist; Tebow won the award.
Gerhart put it well.
“In a time when education is falling by the way side, guys like McCoy, Suh, Tebow and Ingram, [who value academics], are the real heroes.”
Regional Bias
This needs to be talked about until it’s fixed, particularly in light of the closeness of this year’s balloting. Simply put: the Heisman system is undeniably biased against the West Coast. Dramatically so.
The incomparable StiffArmTrophy.com has done an analysis. Here’s how it works. There are six voting regions that receive 1/6 (16.6 percent) of the votes each—Far West, Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest and Northeast. But there’s a big problem: the population of those regions is not equal, and thus the per capita votes allotted are skewed. The Far West region has 21.1 percent of the country’s population; the Northeast has just 11.9 percent.
Statistically, that is, in a word or two, not fair. There are subjective arguments to be made about voter biases—the South thinking that the Pac-10 is a cupcake conference, for instance, even when it is tremendously strong—but those don’t even matter. The numbers, simple as they are, prove a “structural regional bias.”
As StiffArmTrophy.com says, “Three regions (Far West, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic) have more population than [16.6 percent]—and three have less (Northeast, South, and Southwest).”
How does this relate to tonight? Gerhart’s win in the Far West was dramatically larger than any other candidate’s regional win. He beat McCoy by 105 points; next closest was Ingram in the South, where he beat McCoy by 78. Fix the proportions and project the vote totals and, well, you know what happens.
Gerhart was asked point-blank about supposed bias.
“Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. It’s not something we concern ourselves about. We take pride in West Coast football. We take pride in the Pac-10 conference. We are as good as any. I think there’s enough exposure, though of course we’d like more, and as time goes on, people will respect West Coast football and the Pac-10 conference more.”
I applaud his diplomacy, but hopefully, the closeness of this year’s race will help change the Heisman’s methodology.
But I doubt it.
What Could Have Been?
In a race this close, it’s impossible not to look at the past season, and see where Gerhart may have been able to pick up those 28 points. Two immediate plays come to mind. First, the phantom clipping call against Wake Forest does not happen. That long run would have pushed him over 100 yards for the game and likely would have given Stanford another win on the season. Second, Jim Harbaugh gives Gerhart the ball on the final drive against Cal. Given his aggressive running right up until that point, I’d place a tremendously large bet that he was getting into the end zone. That would have given him five touchdowns and a win in a rivalry game.
It would have been nice to play on the final weekend—given Gerhart’s consistency, it’s hard to imagine that he would have been anything short of impressive. Not playing didn’t hurt or help—the week-to-week voting breakdowns show practically no change between the week before the conference championship games and the week after the championship games. A good performance may have given him the extra edge.
Oh, and it would be nice, in terms of the national exposure Gerhart mentioned, if the Pac-10 could work out a decent television deal. That would get the name out—the Notre Dame game, which was nationally broadcast, rose his stock since voters who could not see him before now had no excuse to miss him.
But, as they say, c’est la vie.
Stats of Note
This year’s race was full of fun little nuggets.
Suh had the highest point total of any fourth place finisher in history, while McCoy had the third highest points of any third place finisher. CJ Spiller of Clemson, who placed sixth, made an impact in the Mid-Atlantic, where he came in fifth—the only time a non-finalist placed in the top five in any region. He beat out Tebow by a considerable margin—79 to 57.
Ingram and Gerhart appeared on practically the same number of ballots (67.9 percent for Ingram, 67.1 percent for Gerhart). Meanwhile, 15 different players received first place votes, including all of the top 10 finishers. Finally, 11 percent of voters cast their ballots before the pivotal championship game weekend, when the scene was dramatically different—McCoy was in first and Ingram was in fourth at the time.
And then there was that part about it being the closest Heisman race ever…