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The Heisman usually goes to the player who best represents the spirit of a given season, the one who captures the zeitgeist of what has transpired. Naturally, we tend to want to anoint that player who has been the most exciting, or the most dominating. But the 2009 season hasn’t been exciting. It hasn’t featured any dominant teams. On the contrary, it’s been a bit disappointing. So it’s possible that this rather ho-hum season is meant to end up with a rather ho-hum Heisman winner. Either of the two remaining candidates would fit that bill.
So here are the players with the best chances of actually winning the Heisman:
Colt McCoy, Texas–McCoy continued his hot streak with a huge game against Kansas, going 32 of 41 for 396 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions. In his last five games, he is 130 of 169 (77 percent) for 1,487 yards with 12 touchdown passes and two interceptions. On the year, he has 3,024 passing yards with 23 touchdown passes and nine picks, while completing 73 percent of his passes. He is on pace to have 3,574 yards, 27 TD passes and 11 interceptions by the time of the Heisman vote.
McCoy now has the NCAA record for most career wins by a quarterback with 43. He has nearly 13,000 passing yards and has accounted for 126 touchdowns running and throwing in his four years playing for Texas. From a career standpoint, he’s been truly outstanding.
McCoy has two games left to seal the deal with Heisman voters. The first will come on Thanksgiving Day against Texas A&M, when he’ll have the national spotlight to himself. The second will come in the Big 12 championship matchup against Nebraska, where he can help his team clinch a berth in the BCS title game. Given how he has been playing the last month or so, I like his chances of finishing the season strong. He is almost certain to have Heisman-worthy statistics by the time the votes are due and his status as the returning Heisman runner up and senior on an undefeated traditional power that is vying for the national title will be alluring to many voters. I give him a slight edge in the race right now.
Mark Ingram, Alabama–Ingram racked up 102 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries against Chattanooga, putting his season rushing totals at 1,399 rushing yards (6.8 avg) and 12 touchdowns (with another 25 catches for 225 yards and three scores). He is on pace to have 1,653 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns by the time the Heisman votes are due. Like McCoy, he isn’t setting the world on fire, but he’s the top player on a team challenging for the national title, so he’s got a good chance to win.
Ingram finishes up his season with a game against Auburn on Friday, then the mega-matchup against Florida in the SEC title game a week later. If he keeps playing well and ‘Bama wins out, then he will win the Heisman. But if the Tide loses to Florida or Auburn and Texas wins out, then McCoy is likely to win.
Will not win: Tim Tebow, Toby Gerhart, C.J. Spiller
Putting up good numbers against Florida International isn’t going to save Tebow’s candidacy. Voters have pretty much decided that Ingram is the main SEC Heisman hopeful and the best Tebow can hope for at this point is to play the role of spoiler.
It wasn’t Gerhart’s fault that Stanford lost. He rushed for 136 yards and four touchdowns against Cal and his season numbers are outstanding. But he will be penalized for his team losing and, though he can still get to New York, he won’t win the Heisman.
Spiller was pretty quiet in Clemson’s win over Virginia and whatever shot he had at a late-season run at the Heisman is gone.
If the vote were held today
1. Mark Ingram
2. Colt McCoy
3. Toby Gerhart
4. Tim Tebow
5. C.J. Spiller
6. Case Keenum
7. Kellen Moore
8. Ndamukong Suh
9. Jacquizz Rodgers
10. Ryan Mallett
Comments
This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 12:34 am and is filed under The HP Heisman Watch 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
What if Texas and Bama both lose and neither McCoy nor Ingram plays particularly well in those losses?
Then it will be a very close Heisman race, with one of those two eking it out.
If Tebow leads his team to victory over Alabama he will rise over Ingram and probably over McCoy. I mean if Tebow is still getting votes now just imagine if he does something of note.
I’m not so sure it’s a given that McCoy is going to be able to put up big numbers on Nebraska. I’d actually be sort of surprised if he does.
Tebow has thrown the ball 223 times, McCoy 392. If Tebow had 392 attempts, he would have thrown for 3419 yards (McCoy has 3024), 24 TDs (McCoy has 23), and 7 INT (McCoy has 9).
Tebow is not as good of a quarterback because he plays for a run oriented team? (on the season the Gators have passed 270 times, and run 468 times)
well you see the thing is, tebow DIDNT throw the ball 392 times. so that doesn’t really matter.
Ingram
Haha, the “…well IF Tebow threw as many times as Colt does he’d have those stats tooooo…” argument is the very reason we all hate Tim Tebow and his ignorant legion of followers…
Locker,
You can’t say that “tebow DIDNT throw the ball 392 times. so that doesn’t really matter.” and “Love to see the numbers if he carried more of the load. Against sec defences” in the same post. Don’t you see the hypocrisy?
BTW, if Ingram carried more of the load maybe he gets injured or wears out. You never know. As you infer at the beginning of your post, you have to go by what they did, not by what they might have done.
How about this, then: If Ingram and Tebow both played against vastly inferior teams, they would rush for the same amount of yardage (lets say, 102).
i didn’t write the thing about mccoy and ingram, not sure why that showed up there. i despise that argument as well
Heisman Pundit has to be a real Big 12 homer or a Colt McCoy fan. There is no way McCoy has the clear lead, and then there is no way if that is the case then that Tebow has no shot. McCoy has 24 TD’s on the year while Tebow has 25! and Tebow has less interceptions while playing against much better competition. In fact I don’t see how Tebow is clearly ahead of McCoy at this point. Unless that is if you are HUGE BIG 12 HOMER OR A FLAT OUT COLT MCCOY FAN OR TEBOW HATER. No other explanation.
No one here apparently gets the point of the Heisman Watch. It’s HPs prediction of who has the best chance of winning, not his own personal opinion.
He is predicting how the voters will react (rightfully or wrongfully) should the season pan out accordingly for the top contenders.
Should McCoy be above Tebow? Do Ingram’s numbers turn from good-to-great because of his competition? Do Gerhart, etc. even have a chance anymore? These are all good questions and great topics for debate, but that is NOT the point of the Heisman Watch.
He/she always throws their opinion in there in the analysis saying McCoy clearly deserves it and such.
Stephen, you obviously haven’t read the post about the pac 10. Just scroll down and read it. Arrogance at it’s best with nothing to fall back on. HP is pro USC, granted a storied program with tradition, but a very down year by their standards. HP is a pac 10 homer not a big 12 homer.
[EVERY SPORTS WRITER] is a homer for the [CONFERENCE/TEAM I DON'T LIKE] and is biased against [MY FAVORITE TEAM]!!!!!!!
Whatever pro he/she is it isn’t good. It’s a joke to have Texas at the top of the power poll this whole year after they haven’t played anybody of note and looked bad when they played “decent” teams. They also won’t play anybody of note until the NC game (if they get there).
The thing that people leave out about Tebow is his rushing numbers this year- he’s going to come up near 1000 yards rushing (on pace for around 850-900 at ballot time)- This year he’s become more of a true option guy ala Crouch or Frazier than a passer, add those TDs and he comes real close to Colt (people assume Colt’s a runner because of last year- this year he’s way off that and has less than 5 Rushing TDs)
I think he finally got it right.
Odds are Alabama is going to lose to Florida. Odds have been that Alabama is going to lose to Florida the entire year.
When Ingram does have that big game in a win over Florida, THEN we should put him as the likely winner. Until then odds are McCoy is going to win.
That said: if there were a college football draft who would you draft with the #1 pick? If you didn’t say Tebow you probably enjoy losing.
Stephen who exactly of note has Florida played?
I haven’t read anything about McCoy clearly deserving it. Just him having Heisman-worthy stats…based on previous Heisman winners.
philnotfil: If you think you can just extrapolate stats like that, you obviously have no concept of football.
Why is Keenum getting such a bad review nationally? 29 of 39 for 405 yds & 5TD with no INTs and he goes down? He has put up better numbers than Tebow and McCoy when you compare their games against common foes. In the two losses for his team, he was still threw for 900 yds with 8TDs and 1 INT. They lost because the defense was horrible, not because Keenum played bad. He deserves a lot more respect than he is getting.
Dave, you are right in that Keenum has better stats except for one…wins. McCoy and Tebow are on undefeated teams, and Keenum’s team lost to some inferior opponents. Like it or hate it, the Heisman will never (like seriously, never…) go to a 2-loss non-BCS conference player, regardless of stats.
The best offensive player is CLEARLY Toby Gerhart. Who cares if his team lost, it was the coach’s and defense fault. He scored on 4 TDs against Cal, and had a Heisman Impact Player play when he dragged 4 guys for 30 yds on the catch to set them up at the 13. He has rushed for the most yards and TDs against harder defenses than anyone else. They have been setting up Ingram since mid-season, and Gerhart was ignored until last week. If the Heisman is an individual award and not a team one, then Gerhart clearly deserves it. But I just don’t know if they want a white RB, who’s clearly above the pack, to win the Heisman because it will distort their preconceived notions.
First thing you do is throw out Tebows stats against Charleston,Florida International and Troy and work from there.
Tebow averaged 2.0 quarters of play in those three games. By contrast McCoy averaged 3.5 quarters of play against, UCF, Louisiana-Monroe, and Wyoming. I thought McCoy’s 4 quarter 483 yard effort against UCF was a bit over the top.
But if you started eliminating games against poor pass defenses (say less than top 50) McCoy would only have one game against Oklahoma:
127 yards passing on 39 attempts, 1 INT, 1 TD
33 rushing yards on 14 attempts, 2 fumbles
Tebow has played against 6 top 50 pass defenses and 5 top 25 pass defenses. McCoy has played against 1 top 50 pass defense and 0 top 25 pass defenses.