Far be it from me to add to the gabfest currently underway over the impending No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown between LSU and Alabama this Saturday, but it could have a profound effect on this (or even next) year’s Heisman race (among other things).

I’ll have a full break down on Thursday of what I think Trent Richardson has to do against LSU to win the Heisman, but in the meantime let’s take a look at some of the past No. 1 vs. No. 2 games that had impact on the Heisman race and the Heisman Trophy:

1943: No. 1 Notre Dame 35, No. 2 Michigan 12

An early-season romp over the Wolverines paved the way for quarterback Angelo Bertelli to win Notre Dame’s first Heisman Trophy. Michigan was so shell-shocked, it refused to play the Irish again until 1978.

1945: No. 1 Army 48, No. 2 Notre Dame 0

Felix ‘Doc’ Blanchard became the first junior to win the Heisman thanks to his part in Army’s 48-0 pasting of Notre Dame. One newspaper account of the game referred to him as ’205 pounds of charging wild buffalo’.

1946: No. 1 Army 0, No. 2 Notre Dame 0

The original Game of the Century. This one was in Yankee Stadium and featured two undefeated teams and an Army squad that had won 25 in a row. It was the first game to feature four Heisman winners, as Army’s Doc Blanchard was the defending champ, while his teammate Glenn Davis would win it that same season. Future Irish winners Johnny Lujack (’47) and Leon Hart (’49) were also in this game. This game didn’t win Davis the Heisman, but a touchdown-saving tackle of Blanchard launched Lujack’s campaign the following year.

1971: No. 1 Nebraska 35, No. 2 Oklahoma 31

It’s a common misconception that the Johnny Rodgers punt return touchdown to beat Oklahoma in this game led to the all-purpose dynamo winning the Heisman for Nebraska. In reality, it led to him winning the following year, 1972. You’ll rarely see a highlight of Rodgers in his Heisman-winning season. It’s always this return, from the year before. But, it was such a great return, it carried over quite well.

1981: No. 1 USC 28, Oklahoma 24

USC’s Marcus Allen had opened the season with 210 yards against Tennessee and 274 yards against Indiana. His 208 yards and two touchdowns against the No. 2 Sooners proved he was not a fluke and, indeed, he went on to win the Heisman by becoming the first player to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season.

1985: No. 1 Iowa 12, No. 2 Michigan 10

How did a guy like Chuck Long almost beat the legendary Bo Jackson in the Heisman race? This game might’ve been the biggest reason why Long almost topped the Auburn running back. In the end, he fell short in what was then the closest race in Heisman history (until Ingram’s recent win over Gerhart).

1986: No. 2 Miami 28, No. 1 Oklahoma 16

Vinnie Testaverde won the Heisman as a result of his performance in this late September game. He not only beat the Sooners through the air, he killed them with his feet as well. After this game, there was never any doubt he was going to win the Heisman.

1988: No. 1 Notre Dame 27, No. 2 USC 10

Whatever chance Rodney Peete had of winning the Heisman Trophy in 1988 depended on his performance against the Irish in this one. As it turns out, the Irish manhandled Peete and the Trojans and this gave voters plenty of leeway to hand the Heisman to a well-deserving Barry Sanders in a landslide. Peete finished as runner up.

1993 Sugar Bowl: No. 2 Alabama 34, No. 1 Miami 13

This game had no effect on who would win the Heisman in either 1992 or 1993. But it did have an effect on the sporting public’s perception of Miami’s Gino Toretta and (by extension) the trophy itself. Toretta became the epitome of the ‘Heisman bust’ because of this game (and his subsequent pro career).

1993: No. 2 Notre Dame 31, No. 1 Florida State 24

Ward staved off a late-season Heisman disaster by nearly leading the Seminoles to a dramatic comeback. He fell short in the end against the Irish, but his gutty performance reminded voters that he was the best choice and he went on to win in a landslide over Heath Shuler of Tennessee.

1996: No. 2 Florida State 24, No. 1 Florida 21

This (along with FSU’s loss in 1993 to Notre Dame) is a textbook example of how a late-season loss doesn’t necessarily have to derail a Heisman campaign. It helps if the player performs admirably in a close contest and this is what happened with Danny Wuerffel against the Seminoles. Of course, it also helps if your main competition is a running back from 2-9 Iowa State (or Heath Shuler, for that matter).

2005 Orange Bowl: No. 1 USC 55, No. 2 Oklahoma 19

This game featured one of the more interesting Heisman matchups in history. Participants included the 2003 winner for Oklahoma (Jason White), the 2004 winner for USC (Matt Leinart) and the 2005 winner for USC (Reggie Bush). Oh, let’s not forget the 2004 runner up, Adrian Peterson. While Bush wasn’t particularly vital to USC’s win, his late-season performances combined with the blowout helped put him next in line for the Heisman in the mind of voters. And, yes, this game took place.

2006 Rose Bowl: No. 2 Texas 41, No. 2 USC 38

This game has something to do with the Heisman only in that Vince Young’s performance convinced some people that he not only deserved to win the trophy in 2005, but that he (and not Reggie Bush) actually did win it.

2006: No. 1 Ohio State 24, No. 2 Texas 7

2006: No. 1 Ohio State 42, No. 2 Michigan 39

The first win for Ohio State over Texas made Troy Smith the Heisman front runner. The win over Michigan cemented that status and he went on to win by a huge margin over Darren McFadden.

2007 BCS title: No. 2 Florida 41, Ohio State 14

Tim Tebow played a small part in this one, rushing for just 39 yards and passing for 1 yard, but he accounted for two touchdowns and took the opportunity to introduce himself to much of the nation (the AP dutifully referred to him as ‘Rambo-like’, watering the seeds of the coming hype). Florida winning this title in ’06 certainly helped Tebow’s Heisman run the following year.

2009: No. 2 Alabama 32, No. 1 Florida 13

Tebow was never going to win that second Heisman, but losing to Alabama pretty much confirmed what I had been saying for years: There will never be another two-time winner. If Tebow can’t win it twice, who can?

Oct. 23, 1976

Pittsburgh’s Tony Dorsett ran for 180 yards and three touchdowns to lead the No. 2 Panthers to a 45-0 win over Navy.

In the process, Dorsett broke Archie Griffin’s year-old NCAA career rushing mark and became the first player to rush for more than 1,000 yards in each of his four seasons.

His 32-yard touchdown run in the second quarter was what did the trick, giving him 5,206 career yards.

Dorsett went on to win the Heisman Trophy that season while rushing for a then-NCAA record 1,948 yards.

He finished his career with 6,082 rushing yards, a mark that stood for 22 seasons before being broken by Ricky Williams of Texas.

Heismandment No. 8 points out that you need to cross a statistical threshold to be considered Heisman-worthy.  But that doesn’t mean you automatically win the Heisman.  In some cases, players did more than enough to win, but still did not take home the trophy.  Other factors kept them from winning.

Someone asked me the other day what the best non-winning Heisman seasons were and these came to my mind:

2009: Toby Gerhart, Stanford – Gerhart led the nation with 1,871 yards and scored a phenomenal 28 touchdowns in 2009.  He rushed for over 200 yards three times and scored as many touchdowns in his last five games–15–as the eventual Heisman winner (Mark Ingram) did in his first 11.  And he did it all despite carrying 18 challenging units as a Stanford student.  He was second to Ingram in the closest vote in Heisman history.

2007: Kevin Smith, UCF – Smith rushed for 2,567 yards and scored 30 touchdowns in 2007 and exactly three people voted him first in the Heisman race, where he finished eighth.

1980: Herschel Walker, Georgia – The true freshman phenom led Georgia to the national title while rushing for 1,616 yards and 15 touchdowns with an average of 6 yards per carry.  He out-rushed the eventual Heisman winner, George Rogers, in spectacular fashion in a marquee matchup won by the Bulldogs.  He ended up third in the Heisman vote, victim of the freshman curse.

2006: Colt Brennan, Hawaii – Brennan put up incredible numbers even for the June Jones offense.  He passed for 5,549 yards, 58 touchdowns and 12 interceptions while setting an NCAA record for pass efficiency with a mark of 186.0. It was enough to finish sixth in the Heisman vote.

1980: Jim McMahon, BYU – McMahon set some NCAA records that year that lasted for quite a while.  He threw for 4,571 yards and 45 touchdowns (with 18 interceptions) and had a pass efficiency rating of 176.9 (thanks to a ridiculous yards per attempt of 10.3).  He ended up fifth in the Heisman voting.

2001: David Carr, Fresno State — Carr piled up 4,299 passing yards to go with 42 touchdowns and just seven picks while finishing fifth in the Heisman vote.

2009: Kellen Moore, Boise State – Hard to ignored 39 touchdowns vs. just three interceptions, not to mention 3,536 passing yards for an undefeated team.  However, Heisman voters had him just seventh in the final tally.

1996: Troy Davis, Iowa State – Davis became the only player to have two 2,000-yard seasons, rushing for 2,185 yards and 21 touchdowns in just 11 games.  He did manage to finish a strong second in the Heisman vote.

1998: Troy Edwards, Louisiana Tech – If ever there was a season by a pure receiver that should’ve won, it was Edward’s in ’98.  He caught 140 passes for 1,996 yards and 27 touchdowns.  He was basically unstoppable, but didn’t garner a single Heisman vote.

2000: LaDainian Tomlinson, TCU – LT rushed for 2,158 yards and 22 touchdowns in just 11 games, averaging 196 yards per game.  All it got him was a fourth-place finish in the Heisman balloting.

Note: Feel free to add to this list.  I’d like to go back a bit further, but a lot of the stats from the old days are incomplete. 

* FREE FOOTBALL PICKS *

It’s the 30th anniversary of Marcus Allen’s 1981 Heisman Trophy-winning campaign, when the senior from USC became the first player in NCAA history to top 2,000 rushing yards in a season.

Heismanpundit’s David Caple ran into Allen at Pac-12 media day and got him to talk  about that season as well as offer his opinion on some current running backs:

DC: Do you recall going to the Pac-10 Media Day when you were in school?

Allen: No.  We didn’t have that and, if we did, I don’t remember because it was so long ago.

DC: You started out at USC as a defensive back, then moved to fullback before becoming a tailback.  Talk about your development as a runner.

Allen: I think a lot of people didn’t realize it at the time, but as you mentioned my switch from fullback to running back, it did take some time for me to develop.  I hadn’t played running back since I was an 11-year-old kid.  So I first transitioned into fullback and that was a challenging year and a tough position to play.  I was undersized but I learned a lot, which helped me later in my development as a tailback.

DC: What were you thinking heading into that 1981 season?

Allen:  I  really anticipated having a great year.  I felt that I had one full season underneath me, the year prior, my junior year, and that really helped me out.  I sort of got a chance to really understand the game, understand what was required, understand what the defense was trying to do and understand my offensive blocking scheme.  So I felt really confident coming into my senior year that I knew those things.

DC: When did you start to feel natural at tailback?

Allen:  I always say there are two types of players: Those who know and those who don’t know and, early on, I didn’t know what I was doing.  But after a lot of hard work and gathering as much information as possible, I really knew what to expect and I knew what I was going to be faced with.  I knew every position on the offensive line and what they were going to do on every single blocking play, so it became very comfortable to me.

DC: You were on the 1979 USC team with fellow Heisman winner Charles White. How did his winning the Heisman motivate you? Did you go into your senior season saying “my goal is the Heisman, he’s done it before me and I know I’m capable of that” or did you just start to feel it as you were half way through the season racking up 200 yard games on your way to over 2,000 yards?

Allen: My ambition when I was a kid was to win the Heisman.  I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but as fate would have it, I ended up being put in that position.  Of course, blocking for Charlie and sharing in the excitement of helping him win the award certainly made it feel more tangible.  When I got the opportunity to play tailback, it was obviously something I had experienced the year before, but it was something I had thought about as a kid, too.  I knew I was at the right school for it, I knew I was going to get the opportunity to do it and it was just a matter of us as a group doing what was necessary for that opportunity to come to fruition.

DC:  Have you seen LaMichael James play at all?  What do you think about him?

Allen:  He’s an awfully good back. He’s explosive, he’s fast, he’s quick and he’s ideal for the spread and the hurry up offense they have at Oregon. I expect great things from him this year.  Being a fan of running backs and watching their unique styles is always fun and I love to see these guys do their thing. I know all tailbacks have one common denominator and that is that we all believe that we are the best athletes on the field.  I think you have to have that attitude. It’s not approaching arrogance or anything like that, it’s just a belief you have to have to in order to be really good because we always have been told that the fortunes of the team rely on the running backs. You can throw the ball all over the place but eventually you have to settle down and really play football.  That means running the ball and moving the chains, especially in the latter part of the games when it is necessary to kill the clock or when the weather become inclement and you really have to run the ball well.

DC: USC’s Marc Tyler got in a little bit of heat for talking about to TMZ. More then just that issue what do you think the running back corps at USC is going to look like this year and how do you think USC is going to do in general?

Allen: I’m expecting good things. First of all, I’m saddened by what happened and I think the lesson learned there is that drinking is not good, period. Marc is a good kid and obviously the alcohol made him make a very bad choice and that’s the lesson for all athletes in general, people in general and especially young people, that’s just something they should stay away from. I know he’s facing a one game suspension. Hopefully he will come back and redeem himself and make everyone proud and make himself proud and make his family proud because I know that was a dark moment for him and his family. I expect him to rebound and I expect SC to be good despite the fact that we don’t have as many scholarship players and we are ineligible for bowl games this year. We are going to have ten fewer scholarships so it’s going to be a challenge, but we expect great things despite that.

We bid Allen adieu and then also ran into Duane Lindberg, who currently works in PR for the Pac-12, but who was the assistant sports information director who handled Allen’s media relations in 1981:

DC: What do you think about now when you look back on that 1981 season?

Lindberg: At the time it was the yards per game that Marcus produced.  I think he had something like five consecutive games where he rushed for 200 or more yards. I think back on it and, when you’re younger you look at it differently, but when you get older you think about it and he was carrying the football 35-40 times a game and was extremely durable and productive. I kind of marvel in retrospect thinking about what he did, carrying the load of a team his senior year and then to go on and play professionally for the duration of time he did. He is just a marvel of genetics and a very special individual.

DC: Talk about the buildup of his campaign as the season progressed.

Lindberg: It’s very interesting because there are so many awards now and back then there were really only two, the Heisman and the Walter Camp.  Marcus ended up winning both. We didn’t have the internet, so we only had the traditional print media which we had to service the most and we had a little bit of local TV. You didn’t have every single game televised like you do today. When ABC would come to town you had a big buildup during the week and there were a lot of requests for interviews.  There was never an individual that was more solid in terms of upholding his responsibilities than Marcus. Whenever we would schedule interviews and media opportunities for him he would be there and he was gracious and he never got into trouble. He was a model citizen.

DC: What stuck in your memory about the Heisman ceremony and going to New York?

Lindberg: I didn’t actually go to the Heisman ceremony.  I went to the Walter Camp ceremony with Marcus in Philly. When we arrived in Philadelphia they asked Marcus if he wanted to go to Atlantic City, so next thing you we drove down there in a limo and Marcus and I walked around Atlantic City.

When we got to the casino a considerable amount of people surrounded Marcus and the casino was using that to their advantage.  I remember having to get back to the ceremony that night, so we had to get going but — and this I’ll never forget — the guys from the casino said not to worry about driving, they would just take us back to Philly in the helicopter. But both Marcus and I said ‘No, no, we’ll take the car.’  They were ready to grab a helicopter on the spur of the moment and take us from Atlantic City to Philadelphia!

Allen ran for 2,342 yards and 23 touchdowns in 1981.  He beat out Herschel Walker, Jim McMahon, Dan Marino and Art Schlicter for the Heisman and then went on to a storied NFL career.

His 1981 season will always be remembered as one of the best in Heisman history.

In the last 20 years, there has been one Heisman winner from the Big East and two from the ACC.

Mind you, all three of these winners were produced by traditional Heisman powers Miami and Florida State.  Conference affiliation then, in this respect, really wasn’t an issue as it often is with other Heisman winners.

What’s going on with these conferences?  Why can’t the rest of the ACC and Big East teams break through and start winning Heismans?

Here are the major conferences and how they break down as far as schools that have won Heismans (under current conference configurations):

Big Ten — 6 schools, 15 Heismans (Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Penn State, Iowa)

SEC — 6 schools, 11 Heismans (Auburn, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, South Carolina)

Big 12 — 5 schools, 12 Heismans (Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, Nebraska)

Pac-12 — 5 schools, 11 Heismans (USC, UCLA, Oregon State, Stanford, Colorado)

Independents — 4 schools, 13 Heismans (Notre Dame, BYU, Army, Navy)

ACC — 3 schools, 5 Heismans (Miami, Florida State, Boston College)

Ivy League — 2 schools, 3 Heismans (Yale, Princeton)

Big East — 2 schools, 2 Heismans (Pittsburgh, Syracuse)

Conference USA — 2 schools, 2 Heismans (Houston, SMU)

Mountain West — 1 school, 1 Heisman (TCU)

As you can see, if not for the relatively recent addition of Florida State and Miami to the ACC, that league would be below even the Big East as far as Heisman contributions go.

Otherwise, four conferences–the Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12 and Big-12–have supplied the bulk of the Heisman winners, especially in recent years.

What is the explanation for the lack of Heismans coming out of the Big East and ACC?

A couple possible reasons:

1. Basketball is still king.  These two leagues have built their sports reputations primarily on hoops.  Being a basketball power is far more economical than being a football power and this seems to be the route many of these school have taken. As a result, the tradition has oozed in one direction–toward the hardcourt and away from the gridiron.

2. Poor Recruiting Bases.  Some Big East and ACC schools are ensconced in regions that are somewhat lacking in recruiting talent.  The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic schools–UConn, Syracuse, Connecticut, Boston College, Rutgers, Maryland–are at a bit of a disadvantage in this regard.  And where talent does exist–the Tidewater areas of Virginia, North Carolina, etc.–the competition is fierce, with the other major conferences often swooping in to steal players away.

3. Lack of Top Flight Facilities.  This goes back to the focus on basketball.  There are a ton of well-known hoops arenas in these leagues, but few storied football stadiums.  Only three schools in these two leagues have stadium capacities over 70,000, with Miami and Florida State being two of them. Big-time players want to play before big-time crowds.

4. Lack of Big-Time Coaches.  The ACC and Big East just don’t pay what the other leagues pay.  This goes back to an overall perception that the ACC and Big East aren’t that committed to winning at football.  It also means that the coaching talent that does emerge is quickly snatched up by other schools willing to pay more money.

This is not to say that good teams don’t come out of the ACC or Big East, or that these conferences don’t produce talented players.  But winning a Heisman requires the confluence of a few factors–team success, tradition, individual excellence and healthy publicity and name recognition.

As the leagues are currently set up, the Big East and the ACC lag well behind in these departments.