I am the first to acknowledge that athletes from mid-major schools have little or no chance of winning the Heisman.
I can understand how some programs see such efforts as a waste of time and money, what with schools like Notre Dame and USC hogging the spotlight every year.
But, I am a little flummoxed over the decision by Northern Illinois to not mount a Heisman campaign on Garrett Wolfe’s behalf.
This would be a reasonable thing if it wasn’t for the fact that Wolfe is currently on pace to challenge Barry Sanders’ NCAA single-season rushing record of 2,628 yards.
The Heisman battlefield is littered with the corpses of failed publicity campaigns. Players with no chance in hell of coming anywhere near the trophy have been featured on the front of notepads, turned into bobblehead figures and touted on flashy web sites.
Now, the one time when there is a chance in hell, the decision is to play it cool.
Go figure.
Wolfe leads the nation in rushing with 207 yards per game and is listed in most projections as one of the top seven Heisman candidates. But NIU has done little on the periphery.
“Our campaign is of a non-gimmick nature,” sports information director Donna Turner said.
Said Novak: “Honestly, the best thing we’ve done is not send out hot sauce, not send out notepads. I still have 100 [notepads] sitting in my office. It was a waste of money.”
She is referring to NIU’s last campaign for Michael ‘The Burner’ Turner. But come on. Wolfe is way better than Turner and, thanks to his efforts against Ohio State and Michigan these past two seasons, he has a much higher national profile.
He deserves a real campaign.
I just did a quick perusal of the Northern Illinois web site. Nowhere on the site is it mentioned that, one-third of the way into the season, Wolfe is on his way to challenging Sanders’ mark.
Since I first noted it here at Heismanpundit.com on Monday, that stat has not been picked up anywhere else.
That’s a shame. If NIU is not going to make an effort for this guy, the SIDs there should at least give the media a good hook, a stat that can serve as the centerpiece of his non-campaign.
I’m talking like how the Texas SID in 1977 created the ‘yards after contact’ stat to tout Earl Campbell.
For instance, how about a website with a yardage countdown ticker entitled ‘Chasing Barry’?
Now, if you think I’m getting ahead of myself on this chasing-Barry-Sanders bit, then I submit to you the rest of the Northern Illinois schedule:
Ball State
Miami (OH)
Western Michigan
Temple
Iowa
Toledo
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Wolfe is averaging 207 yards per game during the toughest part of his schedule. It doesn’t take much fantasizing to realize that he is going to top 1,000 yards this week against Ball State and will have a shot at 2,000 by the time he plays Iowa.
Once he gets past 2,000, Wolfe’s season could take on a magical, Barry Bonds-like quality (in a good way), as every yard will be ticked off and dissected as he approaches the record.
Those games against the directional Michigan schools at the end of his season? Well, they’d stand a good chance of garnering at least regional TV coverage as a result of his chasing Sanders.
And if it turns out that Wolfe doesn’t break the record, so what? Just as no one in the media got mad about Michael Turner’s failed campaign, there will be no repercussions this time for hyping a great player who falls a little short.
Garrett Wolfe is putting up yards at a rate not seen since Troy Davis in the mid-1990s. Davis was the Heisman runner up in 1996.
If he keeps up this pace, there’s no reason Wolfe can’t finish just as high.
Unless, of course, he doesn’t get the support he deserves.
Somebody do something for this guy
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