College Football Heisman Trophy: Baylor University's Robert Griffin III Will Win

According to the website StiffArmTrophy.com, Robert Griffin III (also known as RGIII)is going to win the 2011 Heisman Trophy award. 

This obviously means that Andrew Luck will not win it, and will finish in second place instead—for the second straight year. I can’t imagine going 23-2 over the past two seasons, tossing 32 touchdowns in 2010, and 35 in 2011. Also, throwing for 3,170 yards this season, and touting a completion percentage of 70 percent in 2011, as well as 70.7 percent in 2010. 

How does this compare to what Griffin III has done? 

RGIII had a very quiet 2010 season while racking up 3,501 passing yards and tossing 22 touchdowns. He even finished 2010 with a completion percentage of 67 percent. From the beginning of the season to date, RGIII has thrown for 3,998 yards, tossed 36 touchdown passes, and has a completion percentage of 72.4 percent.

While RGIII has obviously had an amazing 2011 season, one might be left asking—with these numbers, why was RGIII left out of the Heisman mix in 2010? The answer is simple—Baylor University has not had any excitement surrounding their program in years.

It is hard to get your candidate in the spotlight when your team’s 2010 Texas Bowl appearance was your first since the 1994 Alamo Bowl—both of those Bowl games were losses for the Bears.  Furthermore, before the 2011 season the last time the Bears finished a season ranked was in1986. Also, the last winning season Baylor experienced prior to RGIII being on campus, was in 1995—the last year of the Southwest Conference.

In other words, it’s hard to win the Heisman Trophy when you play for a team with a losing record.  Fortunately for RGIII, the Bears are currently 9-3.

Of course, it also helped that the Texas Longhorns decided to crash the “Suck for Luck” sweepstakes by going to Waco and getting dismantled 48-24 by Robert Griffin III and the Bears on December 3.  I think the Longhorns got confused and thought that somehow they would be helping Andrew Luck by “sucking” as badly as they did. 

The Longhorns have the No. 1 ranked overall defense in the Big 12. They are currently ranked No. 14 nationally. Yet, that did not stop them from letting the Bears roll-up 511 total yards. The Longhorns actually rung up a total of 557 yards of offense on their own, but committed six turnovers in the process.

Heisman ballots were due two days later on December 5. This allowed voters to watch RGIII work his magic against a nationally recognized opponent before making their final decision.

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