Does the Heisman still matter?

Tonight, it all comes down to this. Every young boy dreams of taking home the Heisman Trophy while playing in the backyard. It’s what every player wants when the season starts. Little by little, contenders and pretenders are revealed as this journey we call college football comes to the end of a long, winding road. Who will it be? The oh-so-tan Oklahoma gunslinger? The golden-boy/gritty competitor that is Tim Tebow? Could we really see a back-to-back champion in the Florida Gator? Then there’s Colt McCoy. Is there anything more college football than the starting quarterback in the lonestar state? It all comes to a head as the nation’s best player will be revealed tonight, at the Downtown Athletic Club in the Nokia Theater at Times Square at the ESPN Heisman presentation (presented by Nissan). And who cares? Nobody.

Last May a couple of my friends decided we needed to go see “Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Of course I didn’t want to. Indiana Jones—and Harrison Ford for that matter—is a shell of his former self. I can’t watch a wrinkled man well past his midlife crises battle Nazis, Indigenous Tribes, Russians and whatever other awful group Steven Spielberg wants to throw in.

Naturally, I compromised my morals and saw the film—though only after my friend Caleb promised to pay for it. I was even more disappointed than I thought I’d be. Yeah, the fact that Indiana Jones joined Rocky, Rambo and John “Die Hard” McClane in the summit of characters that need to hang ‘em up (the Al Davis’ and Hugh Hefner’s of the movie world, if you will) meant I wouldn’t have like the film no matter what. But it went beyond terrible expectations. *Spoiler Alert* Shia Labeouf was somehow Harrison Ford’s lovechild seemed like the worst part of the film, until it ended with some sort of alien-twist that made no sense.

The Heisman trophy has kind of become the Indian Jones of sports-related awards. There is such a great history. Keith Jackson yelling “goodbye… hello, Heisman!!” as Desmond Howard cut through Ohio State’s punt team. Doug Flutie chucking a hail mary into Gerard Phelan’s hands to stun a top-ten Miami team on the verge of becoming the scariest team in sports. Barry Sanders causing 49 broken ankles, 17 shredded ACLs and 8 ruptured spleens amongst Big 12 defenders en route to a 3155 yd., 39 TD season for Oklahoma State. Somewhere along the way, though, the Heisman has become a trophy for the best statistical player as

Yes, I just brought up Barry Sanders’ sports-boner stats, but that was when something like that actually mattered. Today, it’s all about the system you’re in. June Jones looked like a paper bag filled with douche when he said Tim Tebow was just a system quarterback, but he had a point.

As college football teams continue to incorporate the basketball-on-grass, spread-the-ball-out, let’s-put-our-best-athletes-on-offense-and-win-shootouts style of play, quarterbacks continue to thrive. Since the Charles Woodson-Ricky Williams-Ron Dayne trend in the late ‘90s, seven of the last eight Heisman trophy winners have been quarterbacks, and it will become eight of nine tonight. The only non-QB winner, Reggie Bush, had to triple spin and juke his way through entire defenses to beat out four other quarterbacks. Of the seven passers who have won recently, three (Chris Weinke, Eric Crouch, Jason White) have been used in jokes ever since winning it. It is like looking at what music will stand the test of time. When a significant amount of the winners are already in the Vanilla Ice/Millie Vanilli class after only a couple years, that’s not a good thing.

But for all the laughable winners, the biggest problem is the non choices. In 2000, Chris Weinke beat Drew Brees and LaDanian Tomlinson. In 2003, Jason White got the nod over Larry Fitzgerald and Eli Manning. In 2006, it was Troy Smith instead of Darren McFadden.

The reason for these choices is simple: they play for better teams. All three of the guys that were mentioned played in the national championship. The debate is like almost every other MVP trophy. Is it the best player, or most valuable—read: most statistically significant on the best team. That debate is understandable in sports like basketball and baseball. Kevin Garnett can push the rest of the Celtics to a title. Chris Paul can take the pressure off his teammates so average players become good. Cliff Lee can shut out the other team for 8 innings and give his offense a chance to pull out a win. In football? It doesn’t matter. Two weeks ago, Matthews Stafford passed for 407 yards and 5 TD, but watched his defense get pantsed and give up 409 rushing yards to Georgia Tech in a 45-42 loss. Stafford couldn’t do anything to help his defense re-learn how to stop the 1972 option. The idea that one player can lift the entire team and turn a mediocre group into a national title contender is ridiculous. High School Musical 3 grossed $ 42 million its opening weekend, Slumdog Millionaire took home $350,000. Is anybody about to say Zach Efron is a more valuable actor than Dev Patel?

The other biggest issue with the Heisman contenders of late is the inflated statistics. Looking at the four highest vote-getters (Broken Hands Harrell included), their offenses ran 58% of their plays through them. And it’s not just constant passing. Tebow had more rushing attempts than the next two Gators combined. Colt McCoy led the Longhorns with 128 carries. From 1995-1999, excluding Charles Woodson’s 1997 season, the Heisman winners touched the ball 42% of the time.

But looking back to Woodson’s season, I can’t help but think that was the perfect Heisman year. Whatever the Wolverines needed, Woodson was there. Lock-down corner? Woodson held Wide Receiver/ Under Armour mannequin David Boston to just 3 catches. Receiver? Woodson scored a couple touchdowns. Punt returns? He wasn’t Desmond Howard, but at least he was a threat.

Woodson is one of only two defensive players to win the Heisman. The other, Leon Hart of Notre Dame in 1949, played both ways like Woodson. There have been 73 Heisman trophy winners. Actually, let’s bump that number up to 74 since tonight’s winner won’t be a defensive player. Since we are on a statistic kick, let’s through this gem in there: of all the Heisman winners, 2.7% have played defense.

Why don’t defensive players get any love? If you were to take a citizen of Tonga who had never seen a football game before, briefly explained the rules of the game, then let him watch a game, he could tell you how important defense is. Yet sportswriters who cover college football for a living and former players can’t figure this out?

The most recent case was in 2001. The list of finalist reads like a eulogy for the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions and Houston Texans: Crouch. Rex Grossman. Ken Dorsey. Joey Harrington. David Carr. It has to be the worst list in the history of college football.

(Side note: They should make a “Making The Band” style documentary following these five guys. It would start with peaks, namely the 2001 season. Crouch wins the Heisman. Grossman stays in college for another year before becoming a first round pick. Carr becomes the first overall pick in the next year’s draft and is pretty much a lock to be a member of the Houston Texan’s Ring of Honor in 2021. Harrington becomes the future of Detroit and charms everyone with his piano playing. Dorsey wins the national championship and loses the championship the next year.

After, it’s pretty much all valleys. You know how usually those VH1 documentaries usually start good, go bad, then redemption? Not this time. You have Crouch quitting the NFL during his first year to play in the CFL and then the AAFL (the equivalent of Brett Michaels in his “Rock of Love” stage. Oh wait…). Then we cut to Grossman, busy snorting cocaine in the training room before leading the Chicago Bears in 2006 against the Arizona Cardinals on Monday Night Football. Red Eye Rex finishes with 144 yards and 4 picks. I could watch this documentary for hours…)

The list was terrible, but there were some great names that didn’t quite make it. Roy Williams (defensive-version), Dwight Freeney and Julius Peppers all finished in the top-10. Perhaps the best Heisman moment of that season was Williams leaping over the Texas offensive line and stripping Chris Simms for a touchdown. It was the signature play of the season, but nobody even considered Williams a legitimate contender.

The Heisman trophy is getting close to a Crystal Skull faze and somebody needs to step in. Otherwise, we could be headed for a dark day where the last trophy that carries any weight in sports becomes irrelevant. Or, we could just keep pushing the bar until a quarterback takes the award with 9,000 passing yards and 75 touchdowns for a 6-4 Texas Tech team.