Heisman Watch 2014: Last-Minute Predictions for Epic Race
The majority of big college football awards were handed out on Thursday night in Orlando, Florida.
Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon won the Doak Walker Award as the nation's top running back and Alabama's Amari Cooper took home the Fred Biletnikoff Award as college football's best wide receiver.
Louisville's Gerod Holliman and his 14 interceptions earned the Jim Thorpe Award (top defensive back), Arizona linebacker Scooby Wright won the Chuck Bednarik Award as the best defensive player in 2014 and Oregon's Marcus Mariota cleaned up.
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However, it's Saturday night in New York when the most prized piece of hardware in college football, the Heisman Trophy, will be presented to the latest deserving recipient.
SportsCenter has the rundown of the three finalists for the award:
All three players have put in outstanding efforts this season, but only one can walk away with the Heisman trophy on Saturday night. Here are some last-minute predictions for the award and the case for each player's candidacy.
Third: Melvin Gordon, RB, Wisconsin
While Cooper and Mariota have quite clearly been the nation's best wideout and best quarterback this season, respectively, it took a few weeks for everyone to catch onto the fact that Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon was an electric combination of speed and power capable of routinely laying waste to even the brainiest defensive coordinator's best-laid plans.
For the first few weeks of the regular season, it was Georgia's Todd Gurley who served as college football's premier running back and it's interesting to think about how the Heisman race might've played out if Gurley was able to put in a full season's work.
Still, there really aren't too many arguments to lobby against 309 carries for 2,336 yards and 26 rushing touchdowns. Gordon's numbers dwarf those of some of the other top-yardage running backs in the nation.
| Melvin Gordon | Wisconsin | 309 | 2336 | 7.6 | 26 |
| Tevin Coleman | Indiana | 270 | 2036 | 7.5 | 15 |
| Donnel Pumphrey | San Diego State | 255 | 1755 | 6.9 | 19 |
| Jay Ajayi | Boise State | 325 | 1689 | 5.2 | 25 |
| James Conner | Pittsburgh | 277 | 1675 | 6.0 | 24 |
ESPN's Chris Low pointed out on Dec. 4 that the Gordon put up huge numbers against some of the Badgers' fiercest competition:
He has an outside shot at Barry Sanders' single-season record of 2,628 yards. Considering he put up a record-setting 408 yards in just three quarters against Nebraska this season, there's hope yet for Gordon to set the mark.
The achievements are made all the more remarkable by the fact that Gordon simply was the offense for long stretches of the season. Corey Clement finished second on the team in rushing with 824 yards and Badgers quarterbacks Joel Stave and Tanner McEvoy combined to complete just 161-of-291 passes for 1,938 yards, 13 touchdowns and 13 interceptions.
Still, his accomplishments fall just short of those put up by Cooper and Mariota. Oklahoma's Samaje Perine may have taken away some prestige from Gordon's campaign by breaking the single-game rushing record just a week after Gordon set it.
The diminished stature of the Big Ten as a conference might also hurt Gordon's chances in a race featuring representatives from the SEC and Pac-12.
Gordon will likely finish third but only because someone has to. His stats this year would be worthy of the Heisman in a number of seasons, just not this one.
Second: Amari Cooper, WR, Alabama
Wide receivers don't tend to get much play when it comes to the Heisman trophy. The last time a wideout won the award was Michigan's Desmond Howard in 1991 and he received a huge resume burst with his kick- and punt-return abilities.
Before him, it was Notre Dame's Tim Brown in 1987. Still, the fact that Cooper is even invited to the Heisman ceremony bodes well for his chances to finish above Gordon, per ESPN Stats & Info:
Gordon spent all season long running behind a mammoth offensive line that's one of the best in the country. Alabama has a fine offense, but Cooper was the one who dragged his benefactor, quarterback Blake Sims, to stardom this season.
Sims and Jake Coker combined to complete 258 passes this season. Cooper caught 115 of them (48.3 percent). DeAndrew White was second on the team in receptions with 37. It could hardly have been more obvious whom the ball was going to on any given pass play, but Cooper got open regardless. Cooper was so money, offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin started celebrating his touchdowns early.
Few other receivers in the nation can boast numbers comparable to Cooper's, which also include an FBS-leading 1,656 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Colorado State's Rashard Higgins has the only comparable line with 89/1,640/17, but he did it against the 77th toughest schedule, while the Crimson Tide played the fifth toughest, per TeamRankings.com.
Cooper credits Kiffin for much of his success this year.
"The script of the first 10 plays, I get excited every time I look at it because I'm featured in about five of them," Cooper said, via AL.com's Michael Casagrande. "So I'm always happy when I look at the first 10 plays knowing that I'll be able to start out fast."
Still, Cooper isn't on the verge of breaking a big national record like Gordon is and that could work against him. If there is one thing that can separate these two players, it might be the stats from their respective conference championships.
Cooper, coming off a 224-yard, three-touchdown performance against Auburn in the Iron Bowl, was the bane of Mizzou's existence in the first half of the SEC Championship Game. He reeled in 10 catches in the first two quarters and finished with 12 receptions for 83 yards.
Gordon struggled against a bonkers Ohio State defense in a Big Ten Championship shutout loss, gaining just 76 yards on 26 carries.
The latest performances could affect some Heisman voters' thought processes and Cooper's final two games of the calendar year were fine displays of the sure hands and crisp route running that made him such a dominant offensive force in 2014.
First: Marcus Mariota, QB, Oregon
Make no mistake, Marcus Mariota will win the 2014 Heisman Trophy. It wouldn't be a terrible thing if either Cooper or Gordon took home the stiff-arming prize, but Mariota's accomplishments this season at the game's toughest position will ensure he wins the award.
As SportsCenter noted, he already has quite a full trophy case, but one more wouldn't hurt:
Former Ducks head coach and current Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly saw Mariota's huge potential when he was freshman and didn't take credit for his current success.
"It had nothing to do with me,” Kelly said via The Philadelphia Inquirer's Jeff McLane. “When he was a freshman I remarked, ‘This kid’s going to win the Heisman.’”
Mariota finished fifth in the nation in passing yardage and second in passing touchdowns with 38.
Sure, the likes of California's Jared Goff (3,973) might have more yards and Western Kentucky's Brandon Doughty threw more touchdowns (44), but Mariota played in arguably the best conference in the nation and casually tossed in 669 rushing yards, 14 rushing touchdowns and a 26-yard scoring reception.
Goff and Doughty? They combined for negative-100 yards rushing and two ground scores.
Mariota also led the country with a passer efficiency rating of 186.3, per ESPN.com. Bleacher Report's Matt Miller gave him a favorable comparison to a current NFL star:
Of the 372 passes he attempted this season, only two were picked off. This essentially makes him the best caretaker quarterback in the nation and that term is almost always reserved for signal-callers who put scoreboard operators to sleep in most games.
He did all this with an offensive line that struggled to protect him at times. Simply put, Mariota was as unflappable as he was unstoppable in 2014.
The Heisman is supposed to represent a single season of achievement, but for Mariota it could very well serve as a career-achievement award of sorts. He's been a dominant college quarterback for three seasons now; 2014 was simply the best he's ever been in a Ducks uniform.
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