McCoy for...3rd Place

In case you haven’t heard, Colt didn’t win the Heisman trophy. The award went to a running back on a different undefeated team, Mark Ingram. Ingram was the most productive (I would call Julio Jones the “best”) offensive player on the team that finished the regular season at #1. If that is the criteria for the Heisman, then he deserved it! He had a school record for rushing yards in a season for a great football program, Alabama. He helped lead his team to a great season, and that should not be denied. The Heisman Memorial Trophy is supposed to go to “the most outstanding player” in college football. Technically, the Walter Camp Award and the Maxwell Trophy both are awarded to the “best” player, 2009 winners were Colt McCoy and Colt McCoy.

Should the most productive player in the country no matter how their team faired over the season be considered the “most outstanding player”? If that is the case it should have been Case Keenum, Levi Brown, Toby Gerhardt, and Freddie Barnes. Barnes and Gerhardt both deservedly won awards, but their performance was not so outstanding that their teams did not lose a few games along the way.

Should the trophy be awarded to the most explosive player or most athletic player or player with the most potential to make big plays? If that were the case, C.J. Spiller had to be at the top with Golden Tate, Dion Lewis (who should be on 2010 watch list by the way), Joe Webb, and Mardy Gilyard. All these are great players with the potential to lead their teams to victory, but what did Coach Royal say about potential?

So, should the Heisman be a career award? Would a great career coming to an end be considered outstanding? In some cases, I think so. If that is the case, Tebow and McCoy deserved to be sole finalists as their great careers came to differing ends with numerous records falling as they took the field in 2010.

Since 2000, only on player, Carson Palmer in 2002, won the Heisman without being in the National Championship Game. So, does playing for the National Championship make you the “most outstanding player”? Not in my opinion. But, if it did, that should have narrowed the list to Ingram and McCoy.

Maybe all these things should be considered somewhat. In that case, the 5 Heisman finalists deserved to be there (even if Suh only stamped his ticket with the performance in the Big 12 Championship). When you take all these things into consideration: production, explosion, among the all-time great careers, being the most productive player (and leader) of an undefeated team playing for the National Championship, and receiving the awards for being “the best” collegiate player in the country, the award (in my objective and humble opinion) should have gone to Colt McCoy. At the very least, McCoy’s body of work over the season (and possibly his career) should have been given more weight than the Nebraska game that ended the regular season. (Reminder: McCoy (and all the flaws) did lead the game winning drive.) If the 13-game season had been weighed more than that one game, Ndamukong Suh would NOT have won the Southwest region that encompasses the Big 12 Conference. Despite Ingram winning the entire East Coast, if McCoy had won HIS region, he would have won the Heisman, as he should have.