Here’s a site that has an update on all the former Heisman winners and their whereabouts.

Since there are, for the first time, TWO players looking for that elusive second Heisman, I thought it would be appropriate to take a peek back at the circumstances that created the only two-time winner to date.

Archie Griffin is probably a shade under 5-8, but his shadow looms large over Heisman history.  He won the award in 1974 after rushing for a Big Ten-record 1,620 yards and then returned in 1975 as the favorite to become the first two-time winner.

There weren’t a whole lot of established candidates to challenge Griffin in ’75.  Going in, his main competition was probably senior running back Joe Washington of Oklahoma, who was coming off a 1,321-yard (8.4 ypc) junior season in which he led the Sooners to a share of the national title.   Washington finished third in the 1974 Heisman voting, but he had one major hurdle to face in his quest for the 1975 trophy:  The Sooners were on probation and banned from television.  As we know, big performances on TV are key in the Heisman race.

Of the top 10 Heisman finalists in 1974, only Griffin and Washington returned in 1975.  That paved the way for some up-and-coming names to make a move in the race.

Pittsburgh’s Tony Dorsett was considered the likeliest to do so.  He was a junior coming off a couple impressive 1,000-yard seasons, but Pitt was still a year away from becoming a national contender.

USC was breaking in a new tailback, Ricky Bell, a former linebacker and fullback, but no one expected him to become a national name in time to make a Heisman run.

There were a few other talents out there who had yet to put it all together for a full season and who played for teams that weren’t considered traditional powers:  running back Chuck Muncie of Cal, quarterback John Sciarra of UCLA and fullback Jimmy DuBose of Florida, to name a few.

The biggest advantages for Griffin heading into the season were:

—He was a returning senior Heisman winner in a year when the competition wasn’t particularly well-established.

—He played for a team that was ranked fourth by the AP in the preseason and so was considered a national title contender.

—He was within easy reach of the all-time NCAA rushing record.

—He had a string of 21-straight 100-yard games to his credit.

—He played for a traditional power that liked to run the ball in an era when tailbacks reigned supreme.

A lot of these points are finely encapsulated in this 1975 Sports Illustrated story by Ray Kennedy (who, incidentally, sounds like he could’ve been the HP of that era, considering his exquisite Heisman analysis):

Another Heisman?  It’s more than a mere possibility; Griffin goes into the 1975 season as a favorite to become the first player to win two. 

Beyond meeting the traditional criteria-he is a senior (seniors have won 35 of the 40 Heismans), a back (backs have won 38 times), plays in a major conference (the Big Ten leads all other leagues with nine winners) for a renowned team (Ohio State’s four winners are second only to Notre Dame’s six) — Griffin has four additional advantages.

First, given his already impressive statistics, Griffin figures to go on making the kind of news-he needs only 896 more yards, for example, to break the career rushing record of 4,715 set by Cornell’s Ed Marinaro in 1971 — that influences Heisman voters.

Second, the increasing popularity of the veer and wishbone has greatly diminished the chances of a free-flinging quarterback coming to the fore.

Third, marked man that he is, Griffin will again benefit mightily from Ohio State’s all-around running attack, a threat that makes ganging up on the Heisman hotshot “tactical suicide,” as Minnesota assistant coach Dick Moseley puts it.

And fourth, while his chief rival, Oklahoma’s Joe Washington, will once more suffer from the TV ban imposed on the Sooners by the NCAA for recruiting violations, Griffin should be gaining valuable exposure points in the two Buckeye regular-season games that will be telecast nationwide this fall.

All told, Griffin’s Heisman hopes seem endangered only by a pair of intangibles: prejudice and precedent. Some voters, particularly if the contest is at all close, will undoubtedly reject Griffin solely on the grounds that two Heismans is one two many for any player. And if Archie is to endure as something more than one-fifth of a trivia question, he will have to avoid injuries and other turns of fate that caused the other four players who won the award as juniors–Army’s Doc Blanchard in 1945, SMU’s Doak Walker in 1948, Ohio State’s Vic Janowicz in 1950 and Navy’s Staubach–to fade in their final seasons.

These were nice advantages to have and Griffin’s competition would be hard-pressed to trump them.  What could’ve beaten Griffin?  I think it would’ve required a superlative statistical season by a player from a national-title contending team.

As it turned out, his main competitor heading into the season, Washington, rushed for just 944 yards, though Oklahoma did go on to win the national title (remember, however, that Ohio State was No. 1 at the time of the Heisman ceremony).  Dorsett was hampered by injuries and ended up with 1,004 yards on an 8-4 Pitt team.  USC’s Bell burst onto the scene with 1,875 yards–just six yards shy of Ed Marinaro’s single-season mark–but the Trojans collapsed with four-straight losses after opening 7-0. 

So the main challenger to Griffin ended up being Muncie, who paced a Cal offense that led the nation in total yardage.  Muncie collected 1,460 rushing yards, with 13 touchdowns and averaged 6.4 yards per carry.  The Bears tied for the Pac-10 championship.  But the Bears also finished 8-3 with a crushing loss to UCLA in late October that probably put an end to Muncie’s Heisman hopes.  In the end, outrushing and outscoring Griffin wasn’t enough.  Becoming the all-time NCAA rusher while playing for the No. 1 team was Griffin’s trump card.

Looking back, Griffin pretty much wrapped up the Heisman race by mid-October.  He went over 100 yards in an opening win over No. 11 Michigan State, then rushed for 128 yards in a 17-9 win over No. 7 Penn State in game two.  A couple weeks later, he galloped for 160 in a 41-20 romp over No. 13 UCLA .  By game four, the Heisman was his to lose.

At that point, Ohio State was elevated to the No. 1 spot in the polls and then proceeded to slice through the rest of its regular season schedule, winning by an average score of 38-6. 

On the eve of the Heisman vote, Griffin’s stats looked like this:

—1,357 rushing yards, 4 touchdowns in 1975

–5,589 career rushing yards, an NCAA record

–33 career 100-yard games, an NCAA record

Griffin on winning again:

The second time was much harder for me.  We had to replace some guys from the first team and the others stepped up and did a great job. At the same time, you were a marked man. You weren’t going to surprise anybody. I put a lot pressure on myself. I always believed in Woody (Hayes) when he said you’re either getting better or you’re getting worse. You never stay at the same level. I thought for me to get better, I had to win the Heisman again. That was warped thinking, but it was the pressure I put on myself.”

No. of registered electors: 1,041

Date of announcement: December 2, 1975

Date of dinner: December 11, 1975

The positions within each region were as follows:

Griffin’s senior year numbers were not particularly impressive.  His 1,357 yards at the time of the award ceremony remain the fewest by a Heisman-winning back since Ernie Davis went for 823 yards in 1961.  His four touchdowns–a total probably depressed by the presence of goal-line back Pete Johnson (25 TDs)–is the fewest by a Heisman back  in the modern two-platoon era. 

It is certainly arguable that Griffin was not 1975′s most outstanding player.  But his career achievements combined with his consistency and team success put him over the top against what turned out to be a rather weak field.

So what does this all mean for 2009?

For starters, I think it illustrates how all the stars had to be perfectly aligned for Griffin to become the only two-time winner.  It’s hard enough to win it once, but now you have a good idea why no one else has won it twice. 

And so you have to wonder what the real chances are for Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford to match Griffin, especially with such a strong field of candidates in place.  Tebow has a bit of an advantage over Bradford this year–his win was two seasons ago and so the pressure of living up to a more recent Heisman standard is not as great.    I think that given the presence of Tebow and Colt McCoy in the race and the difficult-to-match magnificence of his 2008 season, Bradford’s chances of repeating are close to nil.  If anyone repeats, I say it’ll be Tebow.

So how could Tebow repeat?  He’s on a national title contending team, but so is McCoy.  If McCoy gets hurt or has a disappointing season, then Tebow’s path would obviously be much easier.  At the same time, Tebow would need for no other serious candidate from a major power or title contender to emerge.  No other player can come out of nowhere a la Bary Sanders and put up a season for the ages.  Finally, Tebow would have to stay healthy and produce, once again, numbers that are considered Heisman-worthy.  Except this time the numbers will be held to history’s standards–voters aren’t going to easily swallow the task of annointing Tebow as the greatest player of all time if he doesn’t impress them statistically.  Many will look for reasons not to vote for him–as they did last season–and of course many will be tired of all the hype and look for a fresh face. 

Will Heisman voters feel like making history in 2009?  Will they have a choice?  Stay tuned.

Good read here by ESPN’s Ivan Maisel on the three returning Heisman finalists.

One thing Maisel forgets to mention in his story is that this is the first time in the history of the Heisman that the top three finalists have returned the following season, which I think is a remarkable note.

It’s also the first time that two players who have already won the Heisman will be playing in the same season.  And, of course, there is a chance that the bowl season will for the first time feature three different Heisman-winning players.

…has been released.  I think it serves to counteract many of the charges that ESPN is trying to hand Tim Tebow the Heisman.

Sure, Tebow leads the poll with 71 points, but Colt McCoy is not far behind with 61 points.

I think it also confirms my continuing theory that Jahvid Best (4th) is, at this point, the top darkhorse contender and the running back with the best shot of breaking through the quarterback logjam.  It also shows that Sam Bradford, while respected, is seen as being well behind Tebow and McCoy in this go-around.

We’ll soon have our preseason Heisman Watch, which is my personal assessment of the race, plus the preseason edition of the Heismanpundit/Orlando Sentinel Heisman Poll, which was the most accurate Heisman poll in the country last year.

There are a few schools out there that possess the institutional power and tradition to produce instant Heisman candidates with little or no preseason fanfare.

All it takes is a few good early season games and you can count on these players being talked about as serious contenders (whether they truly are or not).

Here is the group of players who I think have a chance to suddenly be regarded as Heisman candidates if they get off to a sizzling start–thanks in large part, of course, to where they play and the media advantages that gives them:

Aaron Corp, Joe McKnight, Stafon Johnson–USC

DeMarco Murray, Chris Brown–Oklahoma

Terrelle Pryor, Dan Herron, Brandon Saine–Ohio State

Christian Ponder, Jermaine Thomas–Florida State

Jimmy Clausen, Armando Allen–Notre Dame

Greg McElroy, Mark Ingram–Alabama

Charles Scott, Jordan Jefferson–LSU

Brandon Minor–Michigan

Roy Helu–Nebraska

Jacory Harris, Graig Cooper–Miami

I’m working on an in-depth look at Archie Griffin’s second Heisman-winning season.  We’ll see if we can come up with any fresh advice for Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow on how to go about winning that second Heisman.

In these couple posts on 40 yard dash times, Dr. Saturday (Matt Hinton of Yahoo.com) is correct that the reported marks he highlights are probably bogus, but he neglects to mention the best reasons why that is the case. 

It’s not that it is physically impossible for a human to run that fast, as Hinton claims.  It certainly is possible if the runner is talented enough and concentrates on training just for 40 yards.  Many people, including Hinton here, make the mistake of citing the first 40 yards of Ben Johnson or Usain Bolt as reasons why regular football players can’t run a sub 4.3 seconds. 

The problem is that Johnson or Bolt never actually ran a 40 yard dash.  They were running 100 meters, which is an entirely different type of race, with different techniques and strategies involved.  So you can’t just take their 40 yard splits (in which Bolt ran a 4.35) and declare them analogous to what football players are running.  A college sprint coach friend of mine insists that if Bolt or Johnson focused on training and preparing for a 40-yard dash, they’d run closer to 4.0 flat than 4.3.

But the biggest problem with 40 yard dash times–whether in college or pro–is that they are measured with imperfect devices, usually stopwatches started and stopped by a human digit.  The other problem is that they are run under widely disparate settings.  Some are on a track, some on turf, some on grass, some with cleats, some with sneakers, some with spikes, some against the wind, some with the wind and so on and so forth.  Yet all the times are reported as if the conditions were uniform, unlike the 100-meter dash which takes most of these factors into account.  Let’s not even talk about how some strength and conditioning coaches have it in their best interest to overinflate these times to make it look like they are making their guys faster…

Hinton is right that it is highly unlikely that Terrelle Pryor ran a 4.33 as reported by Ohio State.  And given his size and height, it is highly unlikely that he could ever run that fast even if he did focus on it.  But guys like Jeff Demps or Trindon Holliday certainly have the ability to do so, so I wouldn’t scoff at their 40 times just yet.