Tim Tebow should and apparently will be given the Heisman Trophy Saturday.
Even though it goes far beyond the numbers they’re staggering- 29 touchdowns passing and 22 running, 838 rushing yards (nearly 1,000 if, as the NFL does, you count sacks as passing yardage), 260 passing yards a game. He’s completed 69 percent of his throws for a hair under 10 yards per pass attempt and the country’s second-highest passing-efficiency rating.
More important, college football is now about spread offenses with the quarterback in the middle of it all, igniting everything, more point guard than drop-back-and-read passer. Tebow is the ultimate trigger of such offenses, and as a sophomore he’s already a much better passer and college QB than the previous state-of-the-art, Vince Young, ever was.
Having said all that, Arkansas’ Darren McFadden might be as impressive a running back as Tebow is a quarterback. But here’s the weird thing about awards and honors like this in football: It’s impossible to compare linemen to receivers to safeties or whatever. But there’s no question that quarterback is the hardest position to play in team sports, and by far the most important position on any football team.
LaDanien Tomlinson is a great football player, but there’s no way he’s the Most Valuable Player of the NFL while Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are in their primes.
The Heisman isn’t an MVP award, but value can be a tiebreaker. If team A has Tebow and team B has McFadden and everything else is equal, who wins? If you had Tebow on your team and, again, everything else was equal, would you trade him to get McFadden?
Let’s take care of the other finalists. The argument for Chase Daniel was he was the driving force behind was the story of the year. Then Missouri got pounded by Oklahoma - whose redshirt freshman QB, Sam Bradford, should be getting more Heisman hype.
Everybody says Colt Brennan isn’t “merely a system quarterback.” Not sure why. Brennan missed part or all of three games due to injury. In those games the Rainbows averaged over 48 points, and Brennan’s replacement went 64-93 for 889 yards (that’s in roughly 10 quarters), eight TDs and four interceptions.
No, I haven’t seen enough of Brennan to know. But I know he’s played against very, very weak competition. And a coach I know, an expert on quarterbacking, saw Brennan at an elite camp last summer and found his mechanics and general throwing skills lacking a bit.
Anyway, Dave Jones of the Harrisburg Patriot-News is the Pennsylvania coordinator for Heisman voters. He reports that of the 25 Pennsylvania voters, he had contacted 21 as of Wednesday. Of those, 20 said they’re voting for Tebow. With no real East Coast or West Coast candidates, the voting figures to be less regional this time. Tebow’s going to win.
