Most of the electorate could look harder than it does for the “best” player out there, who might be a linebacker, a cornerback or an offensive tackle.
Six in the last seven seasons. Eleven in 13 seasons. Nineteen in 23 seasons since the turn of the century.
Quarterbacks aren’t quite batting 1.000 in recent years when it comes to winning the Heisman Trophy, but they aren’t far off. It’s certainly fair to say the Heisman has become a quarterbacks’ award. The question is, should it be?
USC’s Caleb Williams, who was announced Saturday as the 2022 winner, received first-place votes on 544 of 863 ballots. Heisman finalists Max Duggan of TCU, C.J. Stroud of Ohio State and Stetson Bennett of Georgia finished second through fourth in the voting, with Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker and Alabama’s Bryce Young — the 2021 winner — rounding out the top six. All are quarterbacks.
My ballot had Williams first, Duggan second and Michigan running back Blake Corum third. Had TCU completed its Big 12 championship-game comeback to finish the regular season at 13-0, I probably would’ve had Duggan first because of how spectacular he has been in the clutch. Had Corum been able to play against Ohio State and been his usual unstoppable self, he could’ve ended up at the top of my list. Oh, well.
We all lean toward QBs, which isn’t going to change as long as the teams toward the top of the polls are cranking out 40-plus points per game like it’s nothing and passers are piling up numbers that obliterate anything we ever saw from even the most prolific of their signal-calling forebears. It’s not just a quarterbacks’ award; at the college level, it’s a quarterbacks’ sport.
It didn’t used to be. From the early years of the Heisman through the 1980s, running back was clearly the glamor position. Even in the ’90s, four running backs (Colorado’s Rashaan Salaam, Ohio State’s Eddie George, Texas’ Ricky Williams and Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne) — along with a wideout/return man (Michigan’s Desmond Howard) and a defensive star (Michigan’s Charles Woodson) — won it. But those were, inarguably, the MVPs of their teams.
