Neuheisel on Toby Gerhart's Heisman bid

Ingram won it, and his team is playing for the BCS title.

Stanford was 8-4. That's really the end of the conversation for Gerhart.

Its not that simple.

Why did Bonds win all of those (tainted) mvp's while the hated ones were mired in mediocrity?

This was more about SEC honks and the east-coast bias than the 8-4 records.

Congrats to both players.

Different sport, different criteria.

I don't think they've EVER given the Heisman to a guy on an 8-4 team. They give it to winners.

For a guy on an 8-4 team to win it, he would have to have ridiculous numbers and break some major NCAA records...and even THEN, if there's a guy on a contender with numbers even close...they'll STILL probably give it to the guy on the contender team, justifying it with lines like "he plays in a harder conference...blah blah blah..."

Your logic might make sense if this wasn't the closest race in Heisman history...

Your logic might make sense if this wasn't the closest race in Heisman history...

Tim Tebow won with a 9-3 team, and Ricky Williams won with a 8-3 team.

Tim Tebow was the first player in history to rush for 20tds AND pass for 20tds in a season AND his team won the National Title that year...

Ricky Williams set the all-time D-1 NCAA rushing yards record.

As I said...if you're not on a contender (which Tebow was anyway), you have to do something ridiculously special. Both of those guys did.

As they even showed, the crucial votes didn't come from the southeast or the west. Everybody knew (for the most part) where those were headed. The swing votes came from the sections of the country that didn't have a candidate. All of these sections can realistically ONLY view games from the east coast. None from the west coast. These voters saw one game from Gerhart, the ND game. They compared what they saw in that single solitary game to Ingram's entire season.
To be honest, comparing every game for each player, Gerhart's statistics blew Ingram's out of the water. No, really. Look at every Alabama game. Ingram barely showed up in some and was decent in others. He was great in a few, including the last one against Florida.
The Heisman is like any other viewer's choice award (except limited to certain voters). Their geographical location and channel lineup will determine their votes.

BY FAR the best two players this year (and it's actually hard to decide which one was best) are: Suh and Gerhart. Both statistically and on the field.
But as long as the Pac-10 makes deals with FSN-Nowhere, they will not get the recognition the conference and its players deserve.

Florida did not win the National Championship in the 2007 season that Tebow won the Heisman. They won it in the 2006 season in which the game was played in January 2007, but Chris Leak was the quarterback. LSU won the Championship that year. And as was previously pointed out, this being the closest Heisman race ever, Toby had a legitimate chance regardless of his team's record.

Gerhart lost by 28 points so I guess 1736 yards, 5.6 yards per carry and 26 rushing TD's isn't "ridiculous" and the Pac10 this year was arguably more competitve than the SEC... oh yeah, btw Paul Hornung won the 1956 Heisman playing on a 2-8 ND team