Harrell Left Out Again: Once Again Blame Politics, Not Performance

We've gone from reminders that college football is a sport driven by politics, money and greed to not being able to get away from it.   What's the point of having an award given to "the nation's most outstanding football player" if it's seldom given to the nation's most outstanding football player? 

Likewise, what's the point of having a "National Championship" when only eight (maybe?) teams are actually allowed to play for it? But that's another story for another day.

The best players in the nation are supposed to be invited to the award ceremony in New York on each Saturday that the Heisman Trophy is presented.  This Saturday, for the second consecutive year, Graham Harrell will be denied his shot at the most hallowed trophy in sports not because of the name on the back of his jersey, but rather the one on the front. 

Every year, someone gets left out, in college football and in countless other places; understandable.  But where college football is concerned, why has it become so pathetically predictable? That's rhetorical (obviously, as everyone knows the answer).  However, if the award is indeed given to the nation's most outstanding football player, what have the three finalists for the Heisman Trophy accomplished this year that Graham Harrell has not? 

What case can be made that they've been more successful or more important to their team?  Are their statistics better?  No.  Have they led their respective teams to better records?  No.  Do they have the "privilege" of having played for a storied program that has alumni and boosters with influence on the outcome of the Heisman vote?  Yes. 

I guess you can say that it's Graham Harrell's fault, for choosing to play for a school and a head coach that has had players at the same position put up similar numbers. None of those others in that same system however went 11-1. While McCoy, Tebow, and Bradford all finished with the same record, Harrell did so surrounded by vastly inferior talent (except for one player). 

However, just like last year, Harrell will be punished for playing for a coach other coaches don't like, due to the fact said coach has assailed conventional college football wisdom (someone arrest him).  Anyone who truly believes that any of those other three quarterbacks is more important to his team's respective success simply isn't watching the football games, and if that's the case, how can they be allowed to vote?

Again, the knock on Harrell is that he's simply another player in a system producing similar numbers as those before him, making him a product of that system.  However, let's take a quick look at everybody's darling Tim Tebow.  How can a player who's not projected to be able to play the same position at the next level not be a product of his college system!  Am I missing something?  '

If you're only able to succeed at your position in college, then is it not that college's system that allows you to be successful? Was not former Heisman winner Eric Crouch, who couldn't play the same position in the pros, the very definition of being a product of his system?  

If Andre Ware was playing for Houston right now, putting up the same numbers he did in 1989, he'd have absolutely no shot at winning the Heisman.  We all know that to be the case, but doesn't that mean something's wrong?

If Tim Tebow, Colt McCoy or Sam Bradford accomplished the exact same things that they accomplished at UF, UT and OU at another school not part of the "elite 8", say at Army or Baylor or East Carolina or Texas Tech or Wake Forest or Oregon State, would he still be able to win the award?  When the answer to that question is so sadly obvious, how can the award be taken seriously? 

It's a shame what college football has been reduced to.  College football has plainly become just as corporate and as money driven as the NFL, which is fine; business is business. Just don't make it so obvious. 

I'm too young to know what it was like to watch BYU or Army or TCU win a national championship, but it's a shame those things are impossible now.  It's also a shame it's gotten to the point where even the players on such teams are disqualified from contention for the Heisman Trophy. 

This would all be OK with me and many others like me if the Heisman Trophy were presented, treated, and revered for what it really is, or at the very least become. 

The Heisman Committee shouldn't insult fans by calling theirs an award for the nation's most outstanding football player when it clearly is not.  They should call it what it really is, or rather, what it's become: "The award given to the most outstanding white quarterback or black running back playing in a pro-style offense or one very similar on one of eight or so teams that have previous Heisman winners and national championships under a  white head coach who believes in playing football the way we believe it should be played "

At least Harrell should have the last laugh however, as he and Bradford are the only two out of the four who actually will get to play QB when they leave college.