Heisman Redux

Sam Bradford did not win one of those 'cheap' Heismans, and there have been a few. Sam Bradford is a superb player leading a superb team. But he has something in common with Reggie Bush. They both finished close Heisman races one spot ahead of University of Texas quarterbacks who deserve better.

In Reggie's case, Vince Young proved on the playing field who was the better athlete, for all the world to see. Vince had the good fortune of meeting Reggie Bush head-to-head after the Heisman vote. Colt McCoy has the misfortune of proving on the playing field who was the better athlete before the Heisman vote, in October (sorry, too early son) and in the debut season of college football's enhanced BCS style points.

Style points, i.e. running up the score, has been around forever. In 1968, Bill Yeoman and his Houston Cougars beat Tulsa 100-7, mainly because they could. Even Larry Gatlin, a bench warmer, scored. But from now on cranking up style points will be the name of the game for BCS contenders and marginal wannabes until the powers-that-be of college football develop the backbone to say enough.

Creating a playoff would undercut the importance of the regular season? Professors, you can't damage the regular season any more than to allow the escalation of style points.

Oklahoma this year became the first team to score 60 points in five consecutive games. Brent and Kirk tried to maintain drama and forestall channel surfing late in the recent OU-Mizzou mismatch by pimping the promise of an unprecedented milestone in college football. Any intelligent fan of college football understands 20 teams since WWII could have accomplished this feat. This is NOT a proud accomplishment.

Hell, Bud Wilkinson's OU teams could have topped 60 at will when playing the Seven Dwarfs in the 1950s. He chose not to. Ditto for Tom Osborne's Cornhuskers. Decent men, when it was time they called off the dogs. Many coaches today still choose sportsmanship over style points, but from this point forward they risk undermining the ultimate success of their teams and programs, not to mention long term employment. Run it up...or else.

Texas fans have had a burr under the saddle these three years regarding Reggie Bush's Heisman. He was and is an exceptional athlete who did amazing things on the football field versus good teams. But in November 2005, he clinched the Heisman in a hyped, showy nationally televised night game against #16 8-1 Fresno State. The Bulldogs' fragile ranking, with too many Weber States, Idahos, and San Joses, proved illusory, and the program lost 10 of its next 11 games. The Trojans' narrow, eight-point escape vs. fraudulent Fresno was a feature of ESPN's breathless late fall homage to USC and Bush, 'arguably the greatest college football team of all time.' We just thought we knew hype before the nightly Sports Center run in 2005.

Then, the following spring, tidbits of news began to emerge about Bush and his family being on the take from the day he walked on campus at Southern Cal.

Sam Bradford's Heisman margin, like Oklahoma's BCS margin, is largely based on five straight 60-point blowouts to end the season. Those 48 touchdowns and yardage totals are somewhat inflated by a hefty dose of fourth quarter style points, a publicly acknowledged effort to offset a critical October loss against an important adversary. Bradford seems like a fine young man and his coach, Bob Stoops, says and does admirable things. But Bob Stoops mentored under Steve Spurrier and the old ball coach never apologized for running up scores at Florida when it served his purpose.

When Stoops was running up the score on Texas Tech and Mike Leach, his former offensive coordinator at OU, it was impossible to feel sorry for Leach, who has been consistently unapologetic about leaving his starters in for extra, late game target practice versus easy prey. Call it trickle down coaching.

Voters of all stripes—coaches poll, Harris poll, and Heisman—please stop, take a deep breath, and do the necessary homework in future seasons. You can discourage the scourge of style points by penalizing coaches who leave starters in the game beyond the point of outcome.

Give the game back to the good guys.