My Heisman Trophy ballot came in the mail last week, and for the first time I began to think seriously about the most worthy candidates. Never mind those straw polls – this is for the bronze statue.
What I concluded was that nobody has a grip on the hardware yet and Tim Tebow is still alive in the race because there is still plenty of football left to be played on the big stage.
If Urban Meyer was reading this, his teeth would be gnashing, because campaigning for Tim’s second Heisman is not exactly on his Things To Do List right now.
In truth, it’s still all there for the Gators. Everything from beating an arch-rival to winning the SEC to getting a trip to the national championship game … and, yes, even the Heisman. This list was was sequenced in order of importance. As Meyer would be the first to tell you, the Heisman is the least of these, because without steps one and two there won’t be any chance for post-season glory.
The Heisman Trophy is last, even though it will be decided on Dec. 10—way ahead of the national championship—when the ballots are mailed or sent electronically. If Tebow has a high level of performance in these next two games — especially the SEC title game — he will warrant enough voter attention to be a serious contender.
Unfortunately, No. 15 is chasing his own ghost. On Monday, Meyer mentioned the ironic twist that “It’s Tim’s own fault.” Even though he has 33 touchdowns, he won’t come close to surpassing that staggering 53 TDs from 2007. He is rushing nearly eight times less a game and throwing almost 10 fewer passes.
Right now, I think Tebow probably trails Sam Bradford of Oklahoma and Colt McCoy of Texas and is in a tie with Graham Harrell of Texas Tech — but moving up while Harrell descends. As we saw with Harrell’s collapse against Oklahoma, jockeying for Heisman contention changes rapidly. Chase Daniel of Missouri is pretty much out of it unless Missouri wins the Big 12 title game over one of the Big Three South — Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech.
But they will all have to deal with a secret weapon: The Tebow Factor.
There is this obtuse notion that the Heisman is an individual award won by a player with the best numbers . And while it’s true that Tebow’s 53 touchdowns last season were impossible to ignore, there have been many great players with imposing stats who never got a whiff.
Glamor schools have more gravitas. Notre Dame and Southern Cal have the most Heisman winners — seven. The advantage usually goes to those players at high-profile schools (see Paul Hornung, who won it while playing for a Notre Dame team with a losing record). And certainly the contending teams with the best records are going to give their candidates a boost.
On both those counts Florida and Tebow have an advantage.
So what are the odds of Tebow becoming the second player in history to win college football’s most coveted award back to back? Better than you might think.
If Florida goes 11-1 with a ticket punched to the BCS title games, the voters need to examine the fact that the development of the quarterback is a big reason.
Tebow is not trying to win games on his own, carrying and passing the ball on a pace that’s far below his numbers of 2007. On the other hand, in SEC team competition, Florida is ranked first or second in most of the team categories.
It’s uncanny that Tebow is playing for a better team this season than when he won it in 2007 but is being overlooked as a frontrunner as we speak. Part of that reason is because of the proliferation of so much quarterbacking brilliance in the Big 12.
On the flip side, if Tebow posts impressive stats these next two Saturdays and comes up big in the SEC Championship Game, he could have geography working for him. The South and East would likely go for Tebow. The Midwest and Southwest are liable to be split among the Big 12 quarterbacks. Tebow would not likely carry the West Coast, but whoever did would only do so by a slim margin.
There is one secret weapon for Tebow however: likeability. Maybe since Roger Staubach there hasn’t been a college football player as widely liked and admired as the junior left-hander. Though they don’t get to vote, Tebow is enormously popular with church groups, family organizations and — trust me I’ve seen it — middle-age women. He also reeks with star power.
I know one SEC sports writer who covers a Gator rival but whose wife is such a huge Tebow fan that she wears her No. 15 Florida jersey as an undershirt to all the games. Honest.
Among the High Character bloc vote, Tebow is the man.
They like Tim Tebow. They really, really like him. And I like him enough just as a player to have him somewhere on my ballot, with that spot to be determined by what happens between now and Dec. 7. If you know Tim Tebow, you know he cannot be counted out.