College Football Awards 2011: Who Did Better, Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin?

Stanford QB Andrew Luck and Baylor QB Robert Griffin III both walked away with hardware at the annual College Football Awards Show last night in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

Griffin started the night off by taking home the Davey O’Brien Award, which is given to the best quarterback in college football, while Luck capped the night off by snagging the Maxwell Award, which is given to the best player in college football.

The Stanford signal-caller also took home the Walter Camp Player of the Year Award, beating out Griffin, Houston QB Case Keenum, LSU CB Tyrann Mathieu and Alabama RB Trent Richardson.

If you’re scratching you’re head and wondering how Luck can be the best player in the country without being the best quarterback, don’t worry. I was asking myself the same question. However, we’ll save that argument for another day.

The point is—for at least one night—Andrew Luck got to sit atop the college football world as the best player in the country.

While Luck likely didn’t put off the NFL and return to Stanford just so he could add the Maxwell and Walter Camp Awards to his resume, he’ll at least be happy that he finally got some postseason recognition after watching Cam Newton beat him out for most of the major awards last year.

Thursday night may have belonged to Luck, but college football fans don’t spend all year debating about the Maxwell Award. We all know what trophy is truly the most important and the most prestigious in the sport, and that’s the Heisman.

Luck—who entered the season as the consensus Heisman favorite—will go into Saturday night’s ceremony in New York City as an underdog to Griffin, who has captured the attention of the entire country with his dazzling performance in 2011.

As we’ve seen in the past, just because a player wins the Maxwell Award, that certainly doesn’t guarantee that they’ll end up taking home the Heisman.

Since 2000, only two Maxwell Award winners—Cam Newton last year and Tim Tebow in 2007—have gone on to actually win the Heisman.

Luck will leave a great legacy from his days at Stanford regardless of whether he wins the sport’s top honor or not. Even so, if Griffin beats him out, it’s obvious that he’ll be disappointed that he couldn’t reach one of the major goals that he set at the beginning of the season.

However, the fact is, Griffin just had the better overall season and he's the one who genuinely deserves the Heisman the most.

Last night may have belonged to Andrew Luck, but Saturday night should be all about RG3.