My Heisman vote
Plenty of dead time this week to get to the list of 10 things following the ACC title, so why not delve into the most timely ongoing debate:
The Heisman Trophy.
Filled out my ballot Sunday, and I went back and forth debating 1 vs. 2, finally settling on:
- 1 DT Ndamukong Suh, Sr., Nebraska
- 2 RB/KR/PR C.J. Spiller, Sr., Clemson
- 3 WR/KR Mardy Gilyard, Sr., Cincinnati
Team success certainly factored into my equation, but I consider the Heisman more than a vote for the best player on the best team. And stats aren’t nearly as important as impact.
After watching Suh treat Clemson’s line like rag dolls in last year’s Gator Bowl, he was on my radar from the get-go this season. Suh was the most dominating individual in college football on a weekly basis, and you don’t often find interior linemen with that dual blend of pass-rushing and run-stuffing aptitude.
It is hard to know how my position as Clemson beat reporter affected judgment of Spiller.
On the one hand, witnessing his direct or indirect impact on each offensive or special teams play probably gave me a increased appreciation for his talents and value.
On the other hand, I was probably more inclined to factor in his campaign’s warts, such as his penchant for sitting out large or key stretches in the big games.
No other offensive player in the nation commanded more schematic attention, nor did anyone else supply as many momentous or dynamic moments.
But the consistency factor gave Suh the nod.
Don’t know why Gilyard didn’t receive more attention nationally – sure, some degree of his statistical receiving success is a product of Cincinnati’s prolific offensive system, shouldn’t the same be said for the other offensive finalists beyond perhaps Toby Gerhart?
Gilyard was a terror on single man coverage, and he was also a frequent game-changer in the return game.
A few explanations on some other candidates considered:
QB Andy Dalton, Jr., TCU – Without having seen him before, I figured he’s be TCU’s weak link going into the Clemson game. Kept reading about his high completion percentage and had visions of a Rob Spence system quarterback.
Boy, was I wrong.
Dalton may not possess the premium NFL tools of a Mallett/Clausen or carry the name recognition of Tebow/McCoy, but he was the best quarterback I’ve seen all season in terms of accuracy, decision-making and playmaking, and that’s having scrutinized the Horned Frogs on several occasions since the Clemson contest.
Can’t come to grips with whether I had Dalton too high … or too low.
RB Mark Ingram, So., Alabama – Truth be told, I believe he’s a better conventional NFL prospect than Spiller. Balance, vision, strength, durability, sufficient speed and burst – looks like Emmitt Smith, right down to the No. 22.
And that’s what you want, especially in the pros, where two-thirds of the teams want your standard I-formation back. (Which is to say I think Spiller’s NFL success is more dependent than most on which team drafts him. He can make a good team great – hey, New Orleans is thought to be prepared to release Reggie Bush this offseason – but if you ask Spiller to carry the load for, say, Cleveland, not sure he can thrive under the anticipated pounding).
But I couldn’t in good conscience vote for a player I don’t even believe to be in the top 3 or 4 in the MVP race on his own team. The Crimson Tide’s success begins with a stout defense, then trickles to a punishing rushing approach.
Put Ingram behind Clemson’s O-line and he wouldn’t be nearly as productive. Couldn’t predict the same if you put Spiller in Alabama’s offense.
QB Tim Tebow, Sr., Florida – You can’t place too much emphasis on quality leadership, and despite his lower numbers, don’t think you can argue against his value to that team’s successes.
In his case alone, I admittedly put too much weight on the Gators’ SEC title loss.
Didn’t help that every time I think of Tebow, I hear Tom Rinaldi rattling off one-word sentences in a sappy background voice-over. “Faith. Perseverance. Fortitude. Desire. Blah. Blah-blah. Blah-blah. Love. To listen to. My own voice.”
QB Colt McCoy, Sr., Texas – A sentimental consideration, but only because he deserved the award more than Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford last year. And McCoy’s a likeable guy.
The public case against Dalton would be “Well, who did they really play?” I think you can make that argument against almost anyone but Ingram. And especially so with McCoy.
McCoy had some standout games, but from everything I’ve read and heard by those who follow Texas closely, he’s not really had a good year. His is more a career achievement candidacy riding the coattails of the Longhorns’ unbeaten record.
RB Toby Gerhart, Sr., Stanford – “Toby the Tank” is entertaining to watch. He’s the consummate overachiever, a stocky guy whose sum is greater than his specific skills. Runs with power and understated shiftiness.
But his candidacy is largely founded on big games against Southern Cal and Notre Dame – which probably cemented the votes of Beano Cook and Lou Holtz, but shouldn’t enhance his profile to anyone who has paid attention to how porous those defenses have been this year. No one seems to mention Gerhart’s pedestrian numbers vs. Wake Forest earlier this year.
Proof that timing and perception are everything in the Heisman chase.
20 Comments to “My Heisman vote”
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Clemson Beat writer Paul Strelow blogs about Clemson University athletics.
CJbeing left out shows the bullcrud that the Heisman has become. Ridiculous. If Spiller killed his chances due to his performance against the gamecocks (he still returned a KO for a TD), then why didn’t Tebows chances get hurt because of his performance against Bama.
Ridiculous.
All you sports writers are morons. And ESPN is your clown college.
So I’m a moron for voting Spiller second?
BTW, this isn’t totally a group of sportswriters. The body of 926 voters is filled with plenty of TV folks, too, not to mention all previous Heisman winners.
Yo Paul. You’ve kept it real all year man, I appreciate that. When I think you are wrong, I say so. It’s impossible for me to fairly say whether CJ deserves the Heisman, because of the orange colored glasses I see things through. That being said, I actually think Im a ‘realist’ compared to alot of fellow Clemson fans. And, if you read most of my posts on this website, you’d probably agree w/ me. I’m pretty sure of this though, CJ should have been in the conversation. He should have gotten invited to NYC….and he didn’t….I feel bad for the guy. I can’t help but think, him coming back for his SR year and falling short will be the perfect excuse for other JR’s to take the opposite route. If we are to have long term, ACC Championship caliber success the next couple of years, It’s paramount that Mcdaniel comes back next year and Bowers the year after that
Paul,
Great blog. I agree with all of your rankings, except I feel that you have Andy Dalton to high. I just have a hard time ranking a guy that high that plays in the mountain west, and if you do play in the MWC, then your numbers should be off of the charts. Dalton’s numbers are pretty average.
Love the Suh pick though, if the award is for the most outstanding player in College Football, Suh deserves the award. Its just funny, that it took the final regular season game (Big 12 Championship) for anyone at ESPN to really take notice.
Im not shocked CJ got left off, although I think he deserves to be there more than just about all of the finalists (aside from Suh and Ingram). Its just amazing how much of an effect ESPN can have on the award. When your team is doing well, they hype up the best player. When your team is not doing well, you’re an afterthought. Unfortunately, at 8-5, losing the ACC championship, losing to South Carolina…Clemson and CJ unfortunately became afterthoughts.
And that’s an absolute shame, because CJ is without question the biggest offensive game change in College football this year
Hey Paul, please at least give me some feedback on Clemsons D this week. What can be done to fix it, and how did it get so bad? Is Kevin Steele the guy? Can he do it?
Its too little too late to be talking about changing Linebackers though. Ive been calling for Brandon Maye’s head all year (go back and read the posts and your question and answer each Wednesday for proof)….I just found it comical that NOW they want to do this….
Paul, Great year of covering Clemson’s team – pretty much all down the drain with this column as far as I am concerned. I keep reading between the lines – both here and in the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer. Can’t quite keep from seeing the partisan jealousy from the local media in each case. It certainly seems to me that somehow the ACC and SEC folks, and including their media, acted as if a Clemson Heisman trophy winner was something that they vehemently didn’t want to recruit against. I’ve made that as plain as I could, as often as I could in emails, column comments, and blogs. So one final time: Spiller is unlike anything I have seen in 40+ years of watching college football. I remember watching Tony Dorsett play in Kenan for Pitt against UNC. I grew up a Tar Heel fan and watched Don McCauley (later of the Colts), Boom Boom Betterson and Mike Voigt, Amos Lawrence, Kelvin Bryant, and Leon Johnson, all special I-tailbacks 1000 yard rushers in their own right. I’ve seen Ted Brown, Warrick Dunn, Terry Allen, Kenny Flowers, and James Davis. None of them was as special as Spiller. That people choose to see what they want is evident in their comments. Take you for instance, completely ignoring the 50+ yards rushing on one drive in the 4th quarter against TCU that set up the Tigers field position, and the late 54 yard run against Ga Tech in the championship game. Sure Swinney took him out at other times – his turf-toe injury is the same one that has kept Matt Ryan out of action at the Falcons and meant Jonathan Stewart was out of action for 6 months last year for the Panthers. No doubt his conditioning has suffered – and his playing time too. Still his number of records is nothing but astounding. That people like you would play politics with such a person as Mr. Spiller is simply beyond me. Between the Heisman and the BCS, what a sad state of affairs that college football has become……
Paul, your vote is yours to do with what you want and you obviously gave it alot of thought. I just wonder who the beat writers at Florida, Alabama and Texas voted for. I may be wrong, but I think their votes were automatic.
Charles,
Give me a break. I am so tired of reading crazy people post stuff about conspiracy theories. Any time any media outlet writes something that is in the slightest bit negative towards Clemson, someone says “Oh, well [insert media outlet here] has always hated Clemson”. First off, grow some thicker skin. Secondly, conspiracy statements make you sound crazy.
I without question think Spiller should have gone to New York, but I can understand why he did not get an invite. I live in Texas, and most of the guys I work with have no idea who CJ Spiller is. Big 12, Big 10, Big East and Pac-10 fans have no idea who the running back on an 8-5 team is. Plus, in the South, Spiller had to share votes with 2 other players, who play for the #1 and #2 teams in the country (one of whom has been a heisman candidate for 3 years)
Yes, the best player on the best team, gets the most hype. But its not because ESPN hates Clemson, its because they want to hype up their bigger games.
Its not a conspiracy, its business
Did people somehow miss the fact that you put Spiller 2nd on your Heisman ballot?
John – You are right, it is a business, and that is exactly my point. If you believe for a minute that the business ‘owners’ of the ‘SEC brand’ want to recruit against a Clemson Heisman, then you don’t understand recruiting very well. And please note that I said nothing about a ‘conspiracy’ – it is simply folks acting in a selfish manner. You see, once it became business and not a ’sport’, all the fair play, courage, level playing field, and teamwork ideals of amateur sport could be jettisoned in favor of making ‘myself’ look good. If you think one of the State writers – or any other SEC beat writer – wants his ‘target program’ to be diminished relative to another ACC program, then think again. You’re the one not living in reality. Ron Morris wrote an article in the 3rd-4th week of the season about Spiller ’should’ not win the Heisman. All CJ did was prove him wrong every week after that – including scoring the only TD for his team against USC until the 4th quarter. This is sad – not for Clemson – but for CJ Spiller, the man, the person. He has been ignored by his own ‘adopted’ state, and the rest of the ACC, out of petty jealousy, not because he wasn’t deserving. Bottom line: USC/Columbia writers ignored CJ, and so did UNC/Charlotte & Raleigh writers. The reason he didn’t have ‘national support’ is because he didn’t really have ‘local support’. But thanks for the reply anyway.
John, And by the way – Toby Gerhart plays for a 7-5 team {that would be Stanford, for your poorly informed associates}. Hardly the ‘big program’, best team, best highlights ad nauseum you suggested as the reason Spiller wasn’t in NYC.
Greg – Paul put him 2nd, based on the ‘consistency factor’. So let’s talk ‘consistency’. Spiller was the only player in the country to score a TD in every game. According to CBS, Suh and Nebraska played the 47th toughest schedule, while CJ played the 15th toughest schedule. But CJ also got few touches in his games against Mid Tenn (5) and Coastal Carolina (9), so he really played to a higher SOS. He returned 4 out of 20 Kick Offs for a TD – 1 out of every 5 – the national average is 1 out of 50. In his games against ranked competition (which would not include USC), his total yards were 220+ against TCU, 300+ against Miami, and 220+ and 300+ in two games against GA Tech. And so on and so on. Like I said, if stats and politics were not at play here, then the outcome would be different.
Charles,
You’re right, Toby Gerhart does play on a 7-5 team. But he also put up the biggest numbers in his region (Pac 10). And, unlike Spiller he did not have to share votes with two other players in his region.
I agree with you that Spiller should be in NY, my whole point was that its difficult to get enough votes to send three players from the same region to NY.
And to correct you, “petty jealousy” IS by definition a conspiracy theory. How do you have any idea how those media outlets feel about a Heisman candidate at Clemson? Did you ask them? Did they go on TV and say that? No, its the crazy theory you came up with.
Why would a media outlet just randomly hate a particular school? That’s craziness
My bad John – guess I was poorly informed – Stanford went 8-4.
I think Spiller deserved to be in NYC. All I’m saying is that you’re barking up the wrong tree since Strelow here obviously thinks Spiller should be there too.
I completely disagree with Ron Morris’ opinion. Anyone that thinks Tim Tebow had a Heisman-worty year should perhaps consider writing human interest stories instead of covering sports.
I think we can all agree that Ron Morris is an idiot. Ron posts the things he does b/c he wants to start arguments among everyone in the state, but what I think he fails to realize is how stupid he makes himself sound…
John, Here’s the problem: according to CBS’s ranking Stanford played the 64th toughest schedule while Clemson the 15th, and say, Alabama’s Ingram played the 4th toughest. You could ‘have run up crazy numbers’ against the defenses Standford played. And keep in mind that CJ really didn’t play whole games against Mid Tenn, Coastal, Wake, or NCSt – all poor defenses. Oh by the way, Gerhart and CJ played a common opponent – Wake Forest. Stanford went ahead in the first half @ Wake only to lose to a 2nd half comeback by 7 points (24-17). Theoretically you would think they were pulling out all stops trying to win a close game to the end. Gerhart’s numbers: 17 rushes, 82 yards – that’s right 82 yards against Wake Forest, a 3-5 team in the ACC. He also caught a pass for 12 yards. CJ’s stats 3 weeks later against Wake: 9 rushes for 106 yds as as Clemson owned them 31-3 by half. You’ve been sold a wooden nickel man.
Greg – Again, thanks for the reply – only trying to help. My question is this: where is the ‘local’ support for Spiller – even the ‘in-state’ support. You guys keep saying that Gerhart probably got all the West Coast vote – and you’re right. So why didn’t Spiller get the ‘South’s vote’ – oh yeah, he split with Tebow and Ingram. Fair enough. Everybody voting for their own. Isn’t that basically what I said – that the writer’s vote their personal bias, what player they like, what journalism school they come from, what coach shows their newspaper preference. I think you guys miss the political realities: Morris (Spiller’s in-state support) wrote that Spiller ’shouldn’t’ win the Heisman so early in the year – before any real stats were put up – in recognition that his newspaper was supporting the SEC candidates over the ACC (read: USC over Clemson). In the end that’s exactly what he does: he votes for Tebow, the QB with the 31st most prolific total yards this year…31st just for QB’s (from the NCAA). Ron’s not truly stupid, nor is Paul a ‘moron’ as others suggest. I even like Paul, and I’ve argued his points with stats – but he hasn’t argued back here himself….By the way, I’m originally a UNC fan from Raleigh and I kept up with the writer’s from there and Charlotte – mostly UNC grads. They were no better in their ’support’ for the ACC POY. For instance, the ACC Champ game (remember Spiller’s 233 yards?) didn’t even get a headline in the Charlotte Observer, and the ACC Champ game is in Charlotte next year! Face it – non eof them wanted ‘their’ schoold to have to recruit against a Clemson Heisman – it is as simple as that. And no ‘local support’ meant no national support.
And if you haven’t noticed guys – Clemson doesn’t have a journalism school….