I’ll have expanded thoughts on this year’s Heisman race tomorrow and will put up more pictures and information from the weekend when I get back to Los Angeles on Monday. 

I will say this, though: the HeismanPundit.com Heisman Poll got it right again, as it predicted a top four of Ingram, Gerhart, McCoy and Suh (tie)–see the left side bar.   Pretty darn good.  I also predicted that the final vote would for the first time feature four players with at least 800 points–and that’s what happened.

Thanks to everyone who checked out the site during these past few months.  Be sure to keep coming back as I’ll be plugging along, Heisman race or no Heisman race.  I’ll be releasing my All-American teams next week and then it’s time to take a gander at the bowl matchups and recruiting.  I’ll also start to formulate my early candidates for the 2010 Heisman.

Never too early to get a beat on the race for the most prestigious award in sports.

HP

The new Heisman winner enters the post-ceremony press conference.

Mark Ingram, 2009 Heisman Trophy winner.

Ingram with his mother.

Ingram adds Alabama’s banner to list of past Heisman-winning schools.

Following the ceremony, the finalists are brought to the Marriott Marqis in Times Square, where they address the media.

Tim Tebow: “I was really proud of Mark.  I had a hunch he might win.  I’m really happy for him, but I’d be happy for no matter who had won.  Mark will always be known as the 75th Heisman winner.  I think his game against us capped off a really great season for him.”

Note:  Tebow scored 390 points and now has 3,922 career Heisman points, second all-time behind Archie Griffin’s 4,046.

Ndamukong Suh:  “I’ll never forget this experience.  It’s one thing to see this all on television, but it’s another to see it in person.  It’s a blast.  I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything else.”

Note: Suh’s 161 first-place votes was the second-most by a pure defensive player in the history of the Heisman, trailing only Hugh Green’s 179 in 1980.

Colt McCoy: “I’m honored to be here.  Obviously, I wanted to win and bring back this award to my teammates, but I have the Maxwell, Camp and O’Brien Awards to take back to them.  The most important thing is to win the national title. 

“Mark is a tremendous player.  He deserved to win. 

“It’s been a fun week.  I got to meet Troy Aikman and Bart Starr, so it’s been awesome.  It’s not going to disappoint me (not winning), I’m just looking forward to playing for the national title.”

Toby Gerhart: “There’s no disappointment, no hard feelings.  Mark is a great guy and I’m on cloud nine just being here. 

“Both me and Mark are similar backs, we’re both physical runners who play hard.  I’m very proud of him.”

Note:  Gerhart is the first Stanford Heisman runner up since John Elway in 1982.  It’s also the highest Heisman finish by a non-USC Pac-10 player since Elway in ’82.

There are three weeks of Heisman voting.

Week one saw just 11 ballots (1%) returned.  Week two saw 89 ballots (10%) sent in.   Colt McCoy got the strong majority of the early ballots.

However, 89% of ballots were sent in the third and final week, after the conference title games.  Ingram won those votes, followed by Gerhart, McCoy, Suh and Tebow.

Of the 926 available ballots, 904 (97.6%) were received.

Ingram was on 68% of the ballots, Gerhart on 67%, McCoy on 61%, Suh on 43% and Tebow on 26%.

I’ll be chatting right here from the Heisman ceremony in NYC starting at 7:45 p.m. ET, so be sure to stop by and say hello…

Nice feature here where they break down the regions like a Presidential election night: