The Sports Informant

As the Heisman trophy sets to be awarded tonight to the nation’s top college football player, I found myself caught in all of the controversy of who wasn’t invited, who deserves it more and who will be a lasting pro in the NFL. Most of the arguments put forth by analysts were loaded with stats from the regular season, and several references were thrown to awards the players nominated won earlier in the week. Which got me thinking… what’s the point of the other awards anyway?

Let me put this into perspective. Of tonight’s three finalists (Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford, Florida’s Tim Tebow and Texas’ Colt McCoy–all quarterbacks), all three had won national awards relative to their position earlier in the week. Tebow repeated with the Maxwell Award, given to the nation’s “Outstanding Player.” McCoy won the Walter Camp Award, given as the “Player of the Year Award.” Bradford won the Davey O’Brien Award, labeled the “National Quarterback Award.” And even Graham Harrell, of Texas Tech, the statistically amazing quarterback controversially left out of the Heisman finals, was given the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, given to the “Outstanding Senior Quarterback.”

Here’s my question. How could anyone who doesn’t win the Heisman win any of these awards? And once that happens, since the Heisman is the golden nugget, doesn’t it completely eliminate the worthiness of all of the other awards?

Let’s say Bradford wins the Heisman this year, which many are predicting, mainly because he’s in the national title game, and, well, Tebow already won it last year and doesn’t care much about it this year. If Bradford wins, the Davey O’Brien Award selection committee looks like it made the right choice, right? But how could the Maxwell Award go to Tebow if he’s not the best “Outstanding Player,” since Bradford obviously would be with the Heisman? How could McCoy be the “Player of the Year” if he’s not even the Heisman, given essentially to the player of the year? It makes me wonder who would have received the Unitas award had Harrell not been the only senior. My guess? They would have given it to him anyway, because really, it’s the consolation prize for a guy not even invited to tonight’s ceremony, the only one that matters.

What makes one voting panel smarter than the other, and how can we take these awards seriously? All we’ll remember at the quarterback position is who will win the Heisman. While these guys will have nice trophies to put in cases at home, ultimately, if you lose the Heisman, you win nothing. At least last year it made a bit more sense, with Heisman winner Tebow also selected as the recipient for the Maxwell Award and the Davey O’Brien Award. This year, it seems like nothing more than everyone hyping up the Heisman race.

What better way to get people to care about the Heisman than to create a legitimate three-man race to the final night? Had one QB taken the cake on several awards, it’d be hard for fans to imagine another taking the Heisman, so to dish out the minor league awards to each respective quarterback to build up the final moments of the major league award seems like a good plan for ratings. I’m sure that’s not the case, though, because giving a guy an undeserving award for ratings is just immoral, and college football organizers never do anything of the sort, right?

If nothing else, my curiosity is piqued–not enough to watch a far too lengthy ceremony and speech live on TV, but enough to read about it the next morning, at least. That’s saying something this year, because last year I just assumed Tebow was going to win. And when he did, I didn’t really care.