By Harry King
LITTLE ROCK — The upcoming season might be the ultimate exercise in futility for Heisman Trophy voters who have their antenna out for newcomers.
There’s simply no room on the three-person ballot for quarterbacks Terrelle Pryor of Ohio State or Aaron Corp of USC or any hotshot running back,and it has nothing to do with the fact that Pryor and Corp are sophomores. Tim Tebow of Florida was a sophomore when he won in 2007; Sam Bradford of Oklahoma was a sophomore when he won last year.
In 2009, they are part of the triumvirate that has closed the door on Pryor, Corp, and the others.
Never has the Heisman race been so clearly in focus a month before the first snap.
Bradford, Colt McCoy of Texas, and Tebow were one-two-three last year when all were underclassmen. It is the first time in more than 50 years that the top three vote getters have been eligible the following year. The only other time that occurred was in 1945 when Army teammates Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis finished one-two.
First presented in 1935, the Heisman went to seniors until Blanchard. From Dick Kazmaier in 1951 through Terry Baker in 1962, the winners were seniors. Roger Staubach broke through as a junior in 1963, and there was another string of seniors until Archie Griffin won his first as a junior in 1974. Underclassmen Billy Sims, Herschel Walker, Barry Sanders, Andre Ware, Ty Detmer, Desmond Howard, Rashaan Salaam, and Charles Woodson won during the next 28 years, but there was always a senior second or third.
Not only did Bradford, McCoy, and Tebow lead the voting last year, they scarfed up almost all the votes. Bradford had 300 first-place votes, McCoy garnered 266, and Tebow received 309. The other 27 votes for No. 1 were spread among a half-dozen players.
Remember how Arkansas’ Darren McFadden crashed the Heisman voting as a sophomore in 2006? Reggie Bush and Vince Young were one-two in ‘05 and both passed their senior year to enter the NFL draft. Seven of the top 10 vote-getters were seniors and the exception, Brady Quinn of Notre Dame, finished third in the balloting in ‘06, a notch behind McFadden.
Not only will Bradford, McCoy, and Tebow enter the season with the hype and the statistics, each is the quarterback on a team with a legitimate chance to play for the national championship. As such, they will be in the limelight week after week.
Bradford might be victimized by the same circumstances that sidetracked Tebow last year and that is bettering his numbers from a spectacular year.
Tebow ran for 673 yards and completed 192-of-298 for 2,746 yards in ‘08, but he was going against 3,286 yards passing and a year in which he became the first player to both run and pass for 20 touchdowns in a season.
Bradford completed 328-of-483 for 4,720 yards and 50 TDs for OU, but 74-catch man Juaquin Iglesias is gone, along with other receivers who caught a total of 71. In addition, voters will note the awesome stats of other passers in the Big 12 and take a more skeptical look at defenses in the league.
McCoy will be without Quan Crosby, who caught 92 last year, but Jordan Shipley was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA and he and McCoy have been joined at the hip for years.
In Gainesville, wide receivers Percy Harvin and Louis Murphy, both of whom averaged more than 16 yards per catch, are gone. In particular, Harvin will be difficult to replace.
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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.
