The State of the Heisman Trophy: Looking Beyond the Usual Candidates

ATLANTA — It's time to reinvent the Heisman Trophy.   

This is going to read like a putdown of the Heisman. It's not. It is meant as a nudge to restore the credibility that has eroded. A lot of fans watch the ceremony. Many others shrug; they know the winner in advance.

It is a fabulous award, a lifetime achievement for the winner. I know a Heisman winner, personally, and he is a good guy who was rewarded for a great season. If he became governor, the first thing someone would say along the inaugural parade route is, "There goes the Heisman Trophy winner"—as opposed to, "There goes the guy who is going to fix education in this state."

Year	Winner	School	Pos.
2013	Jameis Winston	Florida State	QB
2012	Johnny Manziel	Texas A&M	QB
2011	Robert Griffin III	Baylor	QB
2010	Cam Newton	Auburn	QB
2009	Mark Ingram	Alabama	RB
2008	Sam Bradford	Oklahoma	QB
2007	Tim Tebow	Florida	QB
2006	Troy Smith	Ohio State	QB
2005	Reggie Bush	USC	RB
2004	Matt Leinart	USC	QB

That said, the voting for the most prestigious individual award in sports is shallow. Shallow as in a shallow pool of candidates and the benchmarks used by voters. Even if the Heisman Trust had its way and could muzzle all voters and polls and stop the vote from being shaped in November, you could pick the winner nine times out of 10 by December 1.

There was a website that predicted the Heisman winner 12 straight years. It doesn't seem to be following the race this season; it must have gotten bored and gone off to predict senate races. That, or the Heisman Trust businessmen got an injunction because the Internet guy killed the suspense.

Here is the winning formula (don't tell anybody):

A quarterback or running back on a top-five team with a bundle of yards.

Here is the backup formula:

A quarterback or running back on a team that has two or three losses, and that quarterback or running back has just too many yards to ignore.

He's in too.

There is the stray season, every 50 years or so, when hallowed Notre Dame is undefeated, its offense is merely OK and somebody has to be in the mix for the Irish. So linebacker Manti Te'o finished second in 2012.

The pool of 11,250 Division I players gets whittled down to six guys pretty quickly with this formula.

You know and I know, Captain Obvious, the best college football player in America is not always a quarterback or running back.

This would be a terrific season to change the picture and find an offensive lineman, defensive lineman or linebacker who should be considered for the award. Front-runners have dropped out and created space. There is room for a wild card.

Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota is a strong candidate, and right now he is running away with it. Who doesn't like this kid? He might deserve it, but Mariota needs some rightful competition. I would guess that Mariota, Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon, TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin and Alabama wide receiver Amari Cooper will be invited. Tell me I'm wrong.

It's time the voters put more thought behind their ballots. Up until five years ago, it was almost impossible for them to make a case for a lineman or defensive player because you couldn't see them all. You had to go by the stats, or the game on TV, or a really terrific PR campaign, or the local Heisman pundit.

The stats and TV could not have told you that Utah defensive lineman Star Lotulelei, not Te'o, was a much better football player than Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel in 2012. You had to wait for the NFL scouts to tell you in the draft. Utah wasn't on TV much, and D-linemen do not rack up big stats.

These days, there is no excuse not to poke around and watch a defensive lineman who rules in the trenches. Every game, it seems, is being taped by a media outlet and available on TV. Every game among the power five is on a screen somewhere. There are rewinds galore available on the Internet.

So I invite the 929 Heisman voters, which include former winners, to go watch some clips of Southern Cal defensive tackle Leonard Williams, or Alabama's A'Shawn Robinson, or Washington outside linebacker/running back Shaq Thompson. See that guy Thompson for yourself. He averaged 7.2 yards per rush in one three-game stretch, yet he is a better linebacker. Who knew?

Alex Gallardo/Associated Press

What about Alabama's Robinson at LSU? It took double-teams to move him out of the hole, and the Tigers' fierce rushing game managed less than four yards a pop.

Wisconsin's Gordon had a great game against Nebraska. Got all those yards by himself, did he? He was not the only guy on the field worth watching.

Why not just look at the Badgers' No. 7 flying around the defense, a marauder. Michael Caputo is a terrific player. He's a strong safety, I think, but he hits people like an outside linebacker and goes where he wants to on the field. What about him? Watch him.

What about Wisconsin middle linebacker Marcus Trotter, a former walk-on? Did you see him against Nebraska? He has a made-for-TV story.

Here is what I know: The guys I go to in a locker room first are usually offensive linemen. The offensive linemen are asked to learn every position along the line in case of injuries. They are regularly tested—sometimes Friday nights before a game—to see if they know the blocking scheme against every defensive front. They have to dissect things. These guys can be pretty smart in front of cameras. Consider them with your Heisman vote.

If I'm building a team, an O-lineman is the first pick, unless Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck are sitting there.

The recent Heisman formula just isn't very complicated. The best quarterback on the best team by December 1 is the winner, or else it's the quarterback with the most sizzle on a team with two losses. Some years, if an undefeated team is dominating, and it has a 1,000-yard rusher, there is your winner. It leaves as a distant fourth the best player in the country in 2009, Nebraska defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh, who had 12 tackles and 4.5 sacks in the 2009 Big 12 Championship Game.

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

It is getting harder and harder to sound a trumpet for another position to win the award because the game has become so quarterback-centric. The QBs just spit the ball out here and there, or they keep it. Their statistics pile up.

Defensive backs have the Lott Trophy. Linemen have the Outland. Both are well served. Quarterbacks and running backs have their awards too, so you can't argue the linemen and defensive guys are already taken care of.

The award that counts the most in our college football culture is the Heisman. Make it mean something. The Heisman is too valuable to be owned by one or two positions.

Ray Glier covers college football for Bleacher Report. He has covered college football and various other sports for 20 years. His work has appeared in USA Today, The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post and Al Jazeera America. He is the author of How the SEC Became Goliath (Howard/Simon & Schuster, 2013).