Check out his cool video of USC’s Joe McKnight from Trojanwire:

To be sure, McKnight is not a legit Heisman candidate this year, but he could be in 2009.

Here’s a look at what to expect from the Heisman contenders this weekend:

Ohio State vs. Youngstown State–Beanie Wells should get his 150-plus yards and then give way to Mo Wells and Brandon Saine in the second half.

Illinois at Missouri–I expect Chase Daniel to have a big game here. Should go for 300-plus yards and 4 touchdown passes. This is the most important game of the weekend for the Heisman race.

Hawaii at Florida–Percy Harvin won’t play, so his Heisman candidacy is on life support at this point. Tim Tebow should be on the bench by the fourth quarter and it will be interesting to see how the Gator run game does with Emmanuel Moody, Kestahn Moore and Chris Rainey. I think Tebow will throw for four touchdowns and plow his way for another on the ground.

Appalachian State at LSU–Keiland Williams should run wild in this one. I expect about 180 yards and a couple touchdowns.

USC at Virginia–With the prospect of rain, USC keeps it conservative and Stafon Johnson grinds out 130 yards and a touchdown.

Villanova at West Virginia–This should be a major blowout, so Pat White will get his 100 yards rushing and should be very efficient passing.

Georgia Southern at Georgia–I think Matt Stafford will have a solid, but not spectacular, day. Maybe 220 passing yards and a couple TDs. Knowshon Moreno will get 120 rushing yards and have another 60 in the receiving game. I think Caleb King might show his stuff in this one.

FAU at Texas–Should be a nice game for Colt McCoy. He’ll have 250 passing yards and 3 TDs and another 50 rushing.

Eastern Washington at Texas Tech–I fully expect Graham Harrell to have 500-plus passing yards and probably 6 touchdown passes.

Western Michigan at Nebraska–Marlon Lucky will rush for 130 yards and catch 8 passes for another 80 yards.

How the race will look after this weekend:

1. Tim Tebow

2. Chase Daniel

3. Chris Wells

4. Pat White

5. Knowshon Moreno

We had our first action of the college football season last night.  I was able to catch a couple of the games, but look forward to Saturday’s bonanza.

Some thoughts–

—I thought Stanford would win by 7.  The Cardinal won by 8.  Tailback Toby Gerhart was impressive, especially considering he is coming off a knee injury.  Jim Harbaugh looks like he is one of the rising stars in the coaching ranks and with a good recruiting class slated to arrive in Palo Alto next year, Stanford might soon be bowling with regularity.

—Oregon State got off to its usual slow start, but I think this team has some potential down the road.  There are some playmakers available in James Rodgers, Shane Morales and, of course, Sammie Stroughter, who made an impressive return after sitting out last season (12 catches, 157 yards, 2 TDS).    And while quarterback Lyle Moevao looks inconsistent and mistake-prone right now, I think he has the arm to hurt some defenses if he can settle down later in the season.

—Central Michigan’s Dan LeFevour got his Heisman campaign revved up.  He threw for 217 yards and 3 TDs and rushed for 42 yards as CMU beat Eastern Illinois, 31-12.

—I know South Carolina is getting praised for its defense.  And I agree it’s pretty good.  But North Carolina State has an atrocious offense and the Gamecock performance is hardly a true indicator of its defensive capabilities.

One question:  Will Steve Spurrier ever have a high-powered offense again?  He’s supposed to be an offensive genius but South Carolina was 77th in offense last year, 20th the year before and 100th the year before that.  Call me crazy, but he’s supposed to be an offensive genius, no?   It’s not like he doesn’t have any talent at hand.   This year’s offense doesn’t look much better than average at best.

I’ll be back later with my weekend Heisman preview.

On the eve of the 2008 season, HP reader Hyrum Lewis gives us his take on this year’s race:

Heisman Pundit,

I haven’t written since last season, but I thought I would chime in on the upcoming Heisman race using the model that I presented (guest blogged) on your site last year.

If you recall, my model holds that, according to historical patterns shown over the last two decades, Heisman trophy winners must fall into one (or more) of three categories to win the award:

1) The Highlight Winner: this is the Desmond Howard/Reggie Bush type who wins the award by virtue of spectacular plays.  The Highlight candidate must show up on Sportscenter and in-game highlights to get on the radar screen by demonstrating electric speed and elusiveness.  The award is generally a wide receiver or running back who also returns punts/kicks.

2) The Stats Winner: goes to players who put up eye-popping numbers and break NCAA records, usually in yardage (e.g. Andre Ware, Ty Detmer, or Ron Dayne), but last year Tim Tebow won the award by putting up remarkable Touchdown stats (the first time that has happened to my recollection).

3) The MVP Winner: this means that he Heisman goes by default (in the absence of an overwhelming stats or highlight candidate) to the quarterback of the #1 ranked team at the time of voting (e.g. Matt Leinart, Jason White, Gino Torreta).

This year will be a great testing ground for the “Lewis Model of Heisman Prediction” because the two players probably getting the most Heisman talk right now–Georgia’s Knowshawn Moreno and Ohio State’s Beanie Wells—do not fit into any of the categories and thus the model predicts that neither of them will win the award.  In order to have a shot at the Heisman, these candidates would have to show something we haven’t seen from them by breaking some stats records (not likely given their difficult schedules) or by showing numerous flashy highlight-reel runs (this is more likely for Moreno than Wells, but I don’t see it for either because of the lack of speed—as you yourself said of Moreno in an Aug 25 post: “the one flaw he seems to have in his game is lack of true breakaway speed”).

As with last year, I would not expect a “stats candidate” to win this time around.  Voters I think are fed up with yardage stats, so a stats winner would have to do like Tebow did and break a record in a non-yardage statistical category.  I could see Chase Daniel winning the award, for instance, by breaking the all time passing efficiency mark, but it’s not likely.

Don’t expect an “MVP candidate” to get the award this time around either simply because there are so few high-profile QB’s for the top teams: USC, Ohio State, Georgia, and LSU all sport mediocre and/or unproven QB’s.  This takes us to last year’s winner: Tim Tebow—he won’t put up the same TD stats this year, but he could win the award a second time by taking his team to the national title.  As a big Tim Tebow fan, I hope this is the case, but I fear it won’t be.

Having said that, I think a highlight candidate is due and so I think that the most exciting player in the country who will keep voters’ attention and make fans hold their breath every time he touches the ball will win.  Hence, in my view the best bet for the Heisman this year is Missouri’s Jeremy Maclin.  He has the speed, agility, hands, electric return-ability, and supporting cast to get the award this year, especially considering that Tebow broke the previously impregnable Sophomore barrier last year.

Anyway, HP, that’s my prediction and an update on my model.  Keep up the great work on your site and I look forward to a great Heisman race and college football season this year.

Nice job, Hyrum.  I guess we’re about to find out if you are right.

Then prove it.

This guy won last year’s HP Fantasy Challenge and the grand prize of two tickets to the 2008 Rose Bowl.

He’s back in it again this year to try to defend his title.

But now, the stakes are higher, as the grand prize for this year’s HP Fantasy Challenge is two tickets to the 2009 BCS Title Game in Miami.

Win the challenge and then cheer on your team as it goes for the national championship. Save your hard-earned money for the South Beach club scene–the tickets will be taken care of. And if your team doesn’t make the title game, sell those tickets to someone who can use them.

Only 15 teams have entered so far, so you do the math. The odds are with you if you know your college football!

Click here to join now or just click on the banner at the top of the page. Time’s a-wasting!

…on the Texas Tech message boards about Michael Crabtree perhaps being ruled ineligible.

Anyone have any info?

I understand there is a propensity out there to find reasons to nitpick over the details of larger-than-life sports figures.

But I don’t understand the point of this story by Joseph Goodman , which notes ‘lingering criticism’ of Tim Tebow .

Sure, Florida’s quarterback won the Heisman Trophy in 2007, but not once last season did he lead a game-winning, fourth-quarter touchdown drive. Tebow had three chances to be the hero — against Auburn, LSU and Michigan — and he stumbled every time.

So, technically, Tebow was perfect with the game on the line. He was a perfect failure. Harsh, but true: Tebow couldn’t win the close game. That’s the criticism facing the junior from Jacksonville entering the 2008 season.

For those of you who were vacationing on Mars this past year, let’s recap: Tebow ran and threw for 55 touchdowns last season. He’s the first 30-20 guy in the history of college football. He was second in the nation in pass efficiency. He completed 67 percent of his passes. He had only six interceptions in 350 attempts. He led his team in rushing with 895 yards and threw for nearly 3,300 yards.

He did this all as a true sophomore. I dare say it was one of the top 5 individual seasons in the history of the sport.

But, hey, he didn’t lead a 4th quarter comeback. Let’s harp on that, shall we?

I might understand if the criticism of Tebow was coming from a novel point of view. But, instead, Goodman offers a standard outlook completely in tune with the mentality of coaching retreads from the most overrated sporting enterprise in America, the NFL:

It’s elementary, but some of the best decisions Brady and Manning make on a game-to-game basis are when they choose not to run the football. Tebow’s biggest weakness last season was his inability to find an open receiver. Instead of reading the field and finding an open receiver, Tebow often would scramble for a first down.

So, let’s get this straight. Instead of find an open receiver, Tebow would scramble for a first down. The horror! Someone please tell me why it is better to throw for a first down than to run for a first down!

Yes, I know, he didn’t go through his reads, or whatever. The NFL teaches us that quarterbacks, at all costs MUST STAY IN THE POCKET (even Vince Young, damn his mobility)! The quarterback MUST GO THROUGH HIS READS! Ron Jaworski, who probably ran a 5.2 40 in his day, says so!

Process over results! Activity over achievement! Maintain the status quo! Because, by God, if the spread–or any other system that doesn’t rely on the sanskrit-based terminology of the West Coast Offense and its offspring–ever makes it to the League, the old gray hairs might not be able to teach really athletic quarterbacks how to resist the urge to use their ability. They might not be able to drill into them the mentality they need to make all the checks necessary to complete a 3-yard pass on third and long.

Never mind that Tebow accounted for more touchdowns than any sophomore in the history of college football, he should try to be more like Brady and Manning, both of whom play in a field goal league featuring offenses with phone-book sized playbooks.

Guess what: I have a feeling that Tebow knows what he is doing out there. He is, after all, just entering his second year as a starter.

Let’s let the artist do his thing, k?