Richardson had 160 yards against LSU (the #2 defense in the country).
Actually, 169. Sorry.
Tyrann Mathieu is a finalist? Incredible, IMO. A defensive player (especially defensive back) is at such competitive disadvantage (for Heisman consideration) compared to offensive players.
Offensives can exploit their best players offensively. And they can exploit their offense to minimize a defensive player.
My ballot has changed somewhat:
I would go with:
Griffin
Ball
Richardson
But he lost, and the Alabama offense was totally underwhelming, in a snoozer of a game.
NOBODY turned off that game and thought, “WOW! Richardson, was amazing!”
I suspect it’s because (a) he plays for the #1 team in the rankings, and (b) his “Honey Badger” nickname seems to get a lot of press. In other words, he probably gets more attention than his stats alone would suggest.
OK, whatever. 170 yards is 170 yards against one of the best defenses in the nation.
There’s a poll at SDMB’s Heisman if you want to vote for one of these folks.
I think ESPN dictated “Get someone on the #1 team in there”
What’s the relationship between ESPN and Heisman voters or the Heisman club exactly?
Well, some of the journalists almost certain have votes. And I think fans collectively get a single vote through ESPN.com.
Other than that, I think it’s the same relationship the Illuminati has to JFKs assassination.
I doubt if ESPN voters could impact the Heisman votes enough to get put Matthieu in the top 5.
IIRC, if there are nearly 900 Heisman voters. I doubt if ESPN and its staff make up more than 20 of the voters. And then they would all have to be in the conspiracy.
I think the “Honey Badger” thing does get him notice (has there been a better recent nickname?), but he had two huge returns in the last two games that turned those games around. And those games were against #3 Arkansas and in the SEC championship game, aka the NCAA championship semi-final. Huge games. In a year with no real obvious candidate to win, he is not a bad choice to get votes given his last two games. He probably doesn’t get many #1 votes, but a number of lower votes which acknowledges that he is good but not Heismann worthy.
So, uh… you’re saying that ESPN controls the Heisman prize?
Actually, I never said that I thought he deserved the Heisman, just that it’s ridiculous to put Honey Badger ahead of him.
Replying to more or less all, ESPN doesn’t control the Heisman itself, they control what a lot of the voters see and hear. And I suspect that HubZilla nailed it. For some reason, starting about two weeks ago (when it became obvious that it was going to be LSU/Alabama absent a miracle), I started hearing “Honey Badger” every five minutes on any show even remotely related to college football.
Ogre - you’re killing me lately. I’m a Georgia fan and an unabashed SEC homer, but…
You Bama fans need to ease up on this bunker “everyone’s against us” mentality. I know you come by it honestly because I listened to Finebaum the other day and every single one of you fans is spun up and on the defensive.
Sure, lots of people outside of Tuscaloosa didn’t want to see a rematch. Hell, I enjoyed the heck out of that LSU-Bama game and I didn’t want to see a rematch. Doesn’t mean I don’t think Bama’s probably the second best team in the nation. Just means in a limited set of 14 games, I want more data. Last time we had rematch talk, Florida went on to paste Ohio State. Maybe Ok State would have outgunned LSU. (“B-B-But they lost to Iowa State!”) Problem is we’ll never know and I think that sucks. Regardless of my frustration with the system in place, can’t see any reason why that would affect my Heisman pick.
The reason Richardson’s not gonna win is that he and the Honey Badger are gonna split votes. I think it’s down to Luck (undeservedly unless it’s a draft status award) or RGIII who plays college football like a video game character. He gets my (imaginary) vote.
Hey, don’t blame me. The fact is that I’ve heard more (WAY more) than my share of “This is a travesty!” talk from the rest of the country. People are spinning this up as a conspiracy and absolute proof of the corruption of the BCS, the NCAA, the SEC, and the University of Alabama. A travesty. A travesty?! It was a really, really, REALLY close vote. It would have (and should have) taken something truly, absolutely remarkable from Oklahoma State to pass an established #2 team.
The voters didn’t (quite) think they did enough. It’s not a fucking travesty, people.
But yes, I’ve already seen it affect the Heisman vote. I’d much rather have a championship than a Heisman, but Dan Patrick left Richardson completely off his ballot as a protest against a Bama/LSU rematch.
Left. Him. Off.
That’s completely fucked up, and he’s not the only one. And frankly, it’s insulting that Mathieu is going to steal votes from Richardson. Mathieu couldn’t sniff Trent Richardson’s jock. Yes, he’s a scrappy, energetic football player. But he’s not the best fucking football player in the country. The idea is preposterous. Hell, he wasn’t even a consistent producer all season.
If RG3 wins it, it won’t be a headache. I’ve watched him play, and he’s scary good. Montee Ball plays against fairly weak defenses, and given that he has only 104 more yards than Richardson, and 12 more touchdowns, was obviously a goal-line carrier very often. Even so, it’s tough to argue against a guy who’s about to break Barry Sanders’s record. So, no headache there. Andrew Luck? Yawn. Beauty prize if he wins it.
But Trent Richardson faced consistently better defenses, retained a high degree of production, was usually pulled by the mid-3rd quarter. You may not think he’s the Heisman winner. That’s fine. But to leave him off the ballot altogether?
He did not face a consistently better defense than say Montee Ball. In fact, the one team they had in common, Penn St. Ball performed better. Ball had a better yds/carry avg. than Richardson,more yards per game and was also pulled prior to the fourth quarter seven times.
And each Heisman voter list only three players, so I am Patrick is hardly the only one who left Richardson off.
Fair enough, but I wouldn’t qualify it as “ridiculous”. And, from what I’ve seen, there actually is an argument for it. Defensive players rarely get the credit they deserve.
It’s also not a binary thing. There are other players ahead of Keenum and probably also ahead of Matthieu.
FWIW, you also get LA area folks talking about Matt Barkley’s snub. And I saw the same thing with Kevin Kolb at UH earlier this decade. Gaudy QB numbers, of course, but Kolb was hardly worth of a nomination, either.
Richardson faced Penn St, pre scandal
Wisconsin, post scandal.
Penn St was a much better team, before the scandal.
As the dude would say, “Well, that’s just, like, you opinion, man.”