This is a public service announcement that unfortunately has to be repeated and repeated.

It’s finally being proclaimed across the nation by people such as Jim Harbaugh, Brent Musburger, and Scott Van Pelt alike. It started out as a whisper at the very beginning of the season and culminated in a full on shout after Stanford beat Notre Dame last Saturday.

“Heisman! Heisman! Heisman!”

That was how fans chose to serenade Gerhart after he rushed for a mind boggling 205 yards and three touchdowns. Now the national spotlight is finally starting to shed some clarity on how great Stanford’s MVP is.

“He’s been so durable, you talk about his balance, his vision his power…everything.” Kirk Herbstreit said during Saturday’s telecast. “He’s the total package, he is everything you would want in a running back.”

The question remains why has the hype taken so long to reach this point?

The obvious answer to that is the East Coast Bias (a.k.a. the anti-Pac-10 bias).

Hence the necessity of this announcement: Gerhart is the best player in college football and deserves the Heisman.

All due respect to Tim Tebow, but he’s not even in the same stratosphere as his 2007 campaign. Kellen Moore of Boise State has tossed 21 more TD’s than Tebow while throwing for almost 1000 yards more. Tebow may be Superman, but Louis Murphy and Percy Harvin were the rest of the Justice League, and Tebow’s missing them.

Third on my list (and most other’s) is former frontrunner for the award Mark Ingram.

Before we get started on the whole disparity-between-conferences argument consider this:

Gerhart has gone against five of the nation’s top-40 run defenses averaging a mind-boggling 140 yards with 12 total touchdowns! How many rush defenses has Ingram faced in the top-40?

Zero

Obviously that will all change with his upcoming title-bought against Florida but still. If we open it up to see how they’ve performed against ranked teams Gerhart still proves the better back.

Against ranked teams Gerhart has given a Bill Russell-like clutch performance against Stanford’s top foes averaging 200.3 yards!! I FEEL LIKE THAT NEEDS TO BE IN CAPS!!!!!

In the words of Brent Musburger, "200 yards...look at the man!"

After Stanford closed out the win last Saturday night, Musburger added, "I've seen a lot of great performances...but I don't think I've seen one better than this." And the man has been calling college football games since 1973! Think about that for a second!

200 yards against the best teams, that is simply remarkable. He doesn’t run away when the going gets tough. Instead, he starts running over people. Showing up in the big games is what a Heisman Trophy winner does.

In this scenario, Ingram’s candidacy gains ground on Gerhart as he averaged a 177 yards in the big games. Unfortunately he averaged less than one TD in these games, whereas Gerhart went for an average of over two.

On top of that we live in a world of the “what have you done for me lately” 24/7 sports news cycle.

The last impressions voter’s will have of Gerhart will be of him gashing, smashing and almost single-handedly beating Notre Dame. In his last performance before Stanford’s bowl game Gerhart ran for another day in the office-type production of 205 yards and three TD’s. Did I mention that Gerhart, one of Stanford’s best baseball players, threw for a touchdown too?

The only thing that could have gone worse for Ingram last Saturday was if Alabama actually lost to Auburn. The 30 yards on 16 carries no-show may have single-handedly cost Ingram the Heisman. The best player in college football simply does not submit that type of performance against their rival on the last week of the regular season. The voters will let Ingram know that.

If the Auburn debacle is any type of a precursor to this weekend, Bama fans may have to stick to just counting their National Championships. (Side Note: Absolutely no shame in that)

Overall, Gerhart still has 300 more yards on the season than Ingram and almost twice as many touchdowns. Doesn’t sound like much of a contest to me.

Discounting a Herculean performance from Ingram in the SEC championship game (again going up against the best run defense he’s seen all season by far), it would come down to a two-horse race between Colt McCoy and Gerhart. I believe this is how it should be, but quite frankly Colt McCoy’s year was last year. (Even though he was robbed)

Gerhart has been proving all season to be the best player in college football, whereas Colt McCoy has had somewhat of a pedestrian year (even by his standards)

In conference McCoy has only gone for over 300 yards passing twice. Those two games?   They came against 5-7 Kansas and 6-6 Texas A&M, two real Big 12 powerhouses. Neither of those defenses is anywhere near top-70 in total defense. A&M, the team McCoy passed for a 304 yards and ran for another 175, is 107 in total defense—and yes, there are only a 120 teams in Division1.

Take out the A&M game and McCoy has only rushed for more than 34 yards once, and that was a non-conference game against Wyoming, a .500 team in the Mountain West Conference.

When looking at his passing yards in comparison to the defenses he played, his statistics are even less desirable. During the season he only went against one top-25 passing defense (Oklahoma) and only one other pass defense in the top 70 (Colorado).

Only two pass defenses in the top 70? Are you kidding me?!?

Let me remind you that Gerhart has put up his stats facing five of the nations top 40 run defenses.

Excluding Oklahoma, the top four pass defenses in the Big 12 conference that McCoy faced averaged a pass-defense ranking of 70. Exclude Colorado and that average jumps to almost 80.

McCoy’s averages for those five games—Texas Tech, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Baylor: 189 yards passing, 1.2 TD’s, 0.8 INT’s

Not a very strong Heisman case for being his stats against the five best defenses he's faced from a BCS conference.

(Note: Wyoming’s pass defense is ranked 72 nationally, and McCoy passed for over 300 yards against them, but alas they’re a .500 team from the Mountain West Conference)

McCoy’s stats against the best pass defense (Oklahoma #22) he’s faced this year: 127 yards passing, 1 TD, 1 INT.

Against his biggest opponent on the best stage, McCoy had a pedestrian performance that was similar to how his team performed. ESPN.com writer Pat Forde had this to say after the game.

“If the showdown with Oklahoma was supposed to be a statement game for the nation's No. 3 team, Texas didn't state much of a case.”

So it is with Colt McCoy.

Just as Tebow isn’t have the same season statistically as he did in 2007, McCoy is not as good as he was last year. His stats reflect that including a projected 200 yards less passing, five less TD’s, and two more INT’s.

This is also a knock on the Big 12 and its pass defense in general. All last year they did a good job of making Graham Harrell, Sam Bradford, and McCoy look superhuman. Then Bradford faced an actual defense in the national championship and he was brought back down to earth.

In short, if he didn’t win it last year than why should he win it this year? His stats are obviously inflated due to the conference he plays in (as Bradford proved by being outplayed by Tebow in last January), and they’re not even as good as they were last year.

Meanwhile Gerhart is playing in a strong run-defense conference and a stronger conference in general than McCoy. He has the most total yards in all of division one, second in yards per game, and first in rushing touchdowns. Not to mention the fact that he absolutely carries his team in a way that McCoy doesn’t. (i.e. Stanford doesn’t have a player of Jordan Shipley’s caliber to share the load, although Andrew Luck is getting there.)

On Stanford’s game-winning drive against Notre Dame everyone in the entire stadium knew where the ball was going and that still didn’t stop Gerhart. He carried the ball on 7 of the 10 Stanford plays on that drive.

His total output on that drive?

54 yards and a touchdown!!! On a game winning drive nonetheless in which Notre Dame knew he was getting the ball!! Why can’t I stop using exclamation points!!?

While both Ingram and McCoy have high profile fixtures coming up this weekend in which they can impress voters I am happy to say that this award rightfully belongs to Toby Gerhart.

Thank you for listening to this public service announcement.