I long for the days of the Charles Wooden/Peyton Manning Heisman controversy that ended with Tennessee lawmakers spending their time demanding that the balloting process be reviewed. Four out of five times (and probably even more often than that), the build-up to and the presentation of the Heisman trophy is nothing more than pundits wringing everything they possibly can from a non-story. Who doesn't know that Troy Smith is gonna win this thing?Rant out of the way, the Heisman finalists have been chosen and They Are Who We Thought They Were! Ohio State's Troy Smith, Notre Dame's Brady Quinn and Arkansas' Darren McFadden.
McFadden has a nice season and all but let's face it, he's a courtesy selection at this point. He may not even finish third, with the likes of Ray Rice, Steve Slaton and Colt Brennan lurking the shadows.
As for Mr. Quinn and his boyish good looks, the question has been asked if he gets all this hype playing for another school. On paper, his stats are gaudy and his school records plentiful. But in the four most meaningful games that Notre Dame has played in the last four years (2005 vs. USC, Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, Michigan in September and USC a few weeks ago), he's a goose-eggy 0-4. Men of the Scarlet and Gray have an even more damaging, albeit biased, view of young Quinn.
If you're up for a not-so-challenging challenge, StiffArmTrophy are attempting to predict the correct order of voting for the Heisman Trophy, which is a little like predicting who's going to win on Oscar night...daunting if you know nothing about it but easy enough if you just read a couple articles. They've got a huge methodology going on with statistics and precedent all this other stuff but honestly, what twelve year old who watches college football semi-regularly couldn't predict the final tally with as much accuracy?