KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A trend figures to be disrupted Saturday no matter who wins the Heisman Trophy.
If it’s running back Mark Ingram, he’ll become the first Alabama player to capture college football’s top individual award.
If it’s Nebraska tackle Ndamukong Suh, he’ll become only the second winner from the defensive side in the award’s 75 years.
If Stanford running back Toby Gerhart wins, he’ll have come out of nowhere, and if he joins Ingram and Suh in the top three, it will mark the first time since 1980 that a quarterback hasn’t finished in the money.
If it’s Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, he’ll become the second to win it twice.
If it’s Texas quarterback Colt McCoy, well, he’d be the first winner whose middle name is Colt. Daniel is his first name.
OK, the last one is a stretch, but the idea that this is something of an unusual Heisman competition — and perhaps one of the closest — isn’t.
“To me, it’s really up in the air,” said two-time Heisman winner and voter Archie Griffin, a former Ohio State running back.
The race was scrambled from the beginning when last season’s winner, Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford, was injured on opening weekend and appeared in only three games this season.
That pushed the second- and third-place finishers in last year’s voting, McCoy and Tebow, into the role of favorites. They led their teams to perfect regular seasons, but uneven play in the conference championship games last weekend might have cost them, because opponents in those games made greater statements.
Ingram rushed for 113 yards and three touchdowns, and took a screen pass 69 yards in the Crimson Tide’s victory over Florida for the Southeastern Conference championship. That performance pushed his season total to a school-record 1,542 rushing yards.
Suh turned in a game for the ages against the Longhorns in the Big 12 championship game with 4½ sacks and a total of seven tackles for losses, pushing the Cornhuskers to the brink of a huge upset.
The ballot deadline was Monday. If voters waited, Ingram’s and Suh’s chances were helped, and Gerhart probably wasn’t hurt much. A week earlier, he had finished strong with three rushing TDs and a scoring pass in a triumph over Notre Dame.
Gerhart wasn’t picked up on many Heisman antennas until the season’s second half, but he started to make his case when he rushed for a total of 401 yards in back-to-back victories over Oregon and Southern California.
In a year when the Heisman favorites seemed to shift every weekend, the value of final impressions may never have been greater.
Sometimes, the individual awards leading up the Heisman announcement provide clues. The last three winners of the Davey O’Brien Award captured the Heisman. On Thursday, McCoy won the O’Brien, which goes to the nation’s top quarterback. He had already taken the Johnny Unitas Award as the top senior quarterback and Walter Camp Award as the nation’s top player.
Suh has won two major honors, the Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award. Gerhart won the Doak Walker Award for the top running back, and Ingram was a finalist.
Oddly enough, Tebow, with two national championship rings and a Heisman to go along with several other major individual awards, appears to be an also-ran in this race.
“I’m competitive in everything I do, so obviously I want to win,” Tebow said. “You want to end your career on a good note.”
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