Breaking Down the Heisman Trophy

29 Days and 8 Hours from the start of this post, life will officially begin again. We will have college football.

Polls will soon be coming out and the talk shows continue to get more and more play. Today, we are going to examine the Heisman Trophy: what it stands for, what type of player most deserves it, and who the favorites are this year in New York.

The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award is the most prestigious "best player of the year" honor a college football player can be awarded. Now, if we take this verbatim, a player at any single position can win this honor. Therefore, if this year USC Senior left tackle Sam Baker is the best player in the country and absolutely dominates his competition, he should win the award - by definition. If in 1997, a defensive back from Michigan not only dominates his side of the ball by shutting down opposing receivers, as well as returning punts for touchdowns and catching passes, he should win the award - by definition.

We all know this isn't how it usually works. The trophy is a statuette of a ball carrier and only once in the 72 times the award has been handed out has it gone to a defensive star. A great deal of weight these days, especially recently, has been put on a candidate's team success...like last year. Although this is an important factor, it is more of a factor which can describe the candidate's value to his team.

For example, the 2005 runner up; who someone who writes here everyday said should have won the Heisman from about week 7, and then proved that he was in fact better than the entire team of not only the '05 and '04 Heisman winners in the BCS Title Game. Vince Young's Texas team was undefeated going into it's match up against Heisman Winners Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. The difference? Texas would not have been in that game without Young. Without Bush, LenDale White would have rolled through the Pac-10 on his own into the BCS Title game. This creates the value behind Young and his team's record...unlike Troy Smith who while he played big against Michigan, was one of the least impressive Heisman winners of recent history in my eyes during the regular season, and most certainly was pitiful in the post season.

I'm a big fan of the highlight tape. I think it is much more important than stats when looking at Heisman candidates. Stats can be inflated, especially when you look at jokers like Brady Quinn. Though Quinn did play well in a few big games at Notre Dame, his touchdown 5 touchdown games came against the likes of ND opponents that go to school with a focus on defending our country, not their own endzone. Thankfully much to his mother's dismay, Quinn didn't win the award.

Peter Warrick would have won the Heisman in '99 had the Dillard's incident not happened. Why? Not because of his stats...but because he had one of the most exciting highlight tapes in recent history. After Warrick's fallout with voters, Ron Dayne, the new all-time rushing leader from Wisconsin won the award...with no attention to the highlight tape whatsoever. The race for the '99 award was over barring something happening to Warrick, before the season began. It did, and once Dayne broke the record, it was over as no one wanted to give the award for the first time to a freshman quarterback from upstart Virginia Tech. Today, we finally all see why.

Just because quarterbacks, for the most part, don't have open field runs, sick moves, and shots of them running people over on tape, doesn't mean they don't have a highlight tape worthy to compete with receivers and backs. Chris Weinke had some amazing throws...the one I most vividly remember was a 99 yard touchdown pass to Snoop Minnis after giving a fake in his own endzone and completely turning his back to the defense with the greatest ball fake I have ever seen. Peyton Manning's highlight tape of throws between two defenders is also quite impressive. And Troy Smith did have that one throw last year.

So what have we concluded here? The Heisman Trophy winner needs to be the main contributor to his team and put them in contention for championships and he must have the great plays to back it up. Stats will follow those key aspects but Most Valuable means the player can't be lived with out. Not the leader of the best team...the most irreplaceable player on a competing team. But, though I believe these are the most important traits, how much do they matter?

When high schoolers pick a college, many of them have to decide from a number of factors as how they want their career to go. If you want to play in the pros, Miami, Florida State and Tennessee are the three schools with the most players in the NFL Today. If you want the best competition, go to the SEC, but if you want to win a Heisman...why go anywhere but USC, Michigan or Ohio State.

Why you ask? ESPN of course. The media loves these three schools. They get more attention than any other schools in the country. In turn, their greatest players get more attention. Since 1995, six Heisman Winners have come from these schools. Grant, they had good teams and the players were good, but seriously.

I've asked many people, Ohio State fans, Big Ten fans, anyone really who knows about college football to explain to me why Eddie George won the Heisman in '95. No one can give me a straight answer. I will argue with and against anyone that Tommie Frazier was the best college football player that year, and that I've probably ever seen. I credit the media for that award going to Ohio State and not Nebraska. We all know about Woodson, who in deed was probably the nation's best player in '97...but got plenty of help from ESPN and Chris Fowler's hatred of Tennessee fans and the "trailer trash" comment. Lest we forget, if the Colts played the Florida Gators tomorrow, I'd take the Gators just as long as Manning was their opposing QB.

Carson Palmer's win was semi-legit. But how Willis McGahee didn't win is beyond me as he clearly was the most dominant player in the country that year. Leinart was simply the quarterback of the #1 team and Bush was a solid choice and I understand why he got the winning votes. Even though everyone who voted for him was wrong, and finally Troy Smith, like Leinart was the quarterback of the #1 team. It's amazing how a network can put the correct games on television and say enough of the right things to get votes. Not to mention, have enough people on the payroll who are in fact voting themselves.

This year is going to be very interesting in the Heisman race, barring injury or heavily discounted goods at department stores. The two top pre-season choices, in my opinion are West Virginia's Steve Slaton and Arkansas' Darren McFadden. Both of these guys are EXPLOSIVE running backs capable of going the distance with a flash of daylight in front of them. What's the catch? These guys, right now are the two best players in the country, no questions asked. How can they lose their Heisman hopes? Talks of Michigan's formidable back Mike Hart and USC's quarterback John David Booty are running around as Heisman hopefuls as well. Do you think anyone at Walt Disney wants someone from Arkansas or West Virginia to win it? That's Slaton and McFadden's biggest obstacle...not anyone on their schedules.

It's going to be an interesting year in the Heisman watch. There are a lot of good players out there and who knows who is going to come out of the wood works. An SEC quarterback? A Big 12 runner? Who knows...and who knows how it will shape up at the end. Stay tuned for updates, especially if Sam Baker dominates the way he should. From LA, we will certianly hear a lot about it.