Jameis Winston's Complicated College Football Legacy

LOS ANGELES — If Jameis Winston makes it through an entire college career without losing a game, winning a Heisman Trophy and two national championships along the way, then he has to go down as one of the greatest college football players ever.    

That's not how people look at him now, of course. Now, people look at him as the person who in one year turned Florida State from a feel-good story to a national villain. It was based on a monstrous allegation against him, though our system of justice didn't find enough evidence to pursue it. What we know for sure is that he did a bunch of immature things.

But the point is this: Winston is probably in the final few days of his college career, and his college football legacy is highly complicated. They say that winning cures everything, but with Winston, it isn't that simple.

How will people see him?

"What people think about me is none of my business, really," he said Sunday at a media conference leading up to the College Football Playoff semifinal against Oregon at the Rose Bowl on Thursday. "It's not like I just look up what people say about me all the time. I really don't know what the word around the street is."

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Sure he does. He complained that he can't go outside and go "walking down the street backwards" without people tweeting about it and taking pictures. True enough, but social media didn't catch him walking backward. It captured him jumping on a table in public and chanting an obscenity about a female body part at the same time that he was a part of the national discussion about athletes mistreating women.

We all saw coach Jimbo Fisher coaching him after a game, telling him to win people back with the right attitude: "Humble pie," Fisher said.

Winston listened. He knows. He feels it.

He also hasn't played nearly as well this year as he did last year, though he keeps winning in the end.

Year	Cmp-Att	Yds	TD	Rate	W-L
2013	257-384	4,057	40-10	184.8	14-0
2014	276-422	3,559	24-17	147.0	12-0

But that's not what people focus on. The moment word came out about Winston and a rape allegation, his name was forever connected to the word rape—even though, at that point, no one knew anything.

If we're just talking about image and legacy, it's hard to look at Winston the same way now as we did, say, early last year.

That is partly the fault of the school, the Tallahassee police and even some of the most fervent FSU fans. The university and the police tried so hard to protect Winston, instead of the alleged victim, that there are doubts even now that justice ever got a fair shake. That doesn't mean justice wasn't served.

But it factors into Winston's legacy. Stealing crab legs and shooting BBs didn't help, either.

Winston clearly sees himself as the victim, and it's possible that he is. He told reporters Saturday at a brief media gathering at Disneyland that football was his "sanctuary." And on Sunday, he equated overcoming adversity on the field this year with dealing with it in life.

"When you get to the next level (the NFL), or even in life when things are not going your way, you just can't hide up under a bridge or hide up under a rock," he said. "You've got to keep going."

With athletes, winning almost always does fix things. People cheer—and get emotionally attached to star athletes as if they represent the beliefs of a town and a community. That is, when they win.

If Winston leads Florida State to another national championship in the next few weeks, then more and more people will add that up with the fact that even a Florida Supreme Court justice, Major Harding, didn't find enough evidence to prove wrongdoing, saying only that the stories of Winston and the alleged victim both had holes, but that neither was more believable than the other, per USA Today.

The truth is Winston's college legacy won't be set until a few years after his pro career starts. This season as a villain will never fully be wiped from his reputation. But if he plays well and starts to behave well as a grown man out on his own, it will be pushed back.

On Thursday, he'll face another Heisman winner, Marcus Mariota, whose college legacy is set as the ultimate humble good guy. It's another chance for Winston to just keep going, as he put it.

His spot in history is guaranteed. What that spot is, exactly, isn't quite set yet. But it will have nothing to do with walking down the street backward.

Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report. He also writes for The New York Times and was formerly a scribe for FoxSports.com and The Chicago Sun-Times. Follow him on Twitter @gregcouch.