The Heisman Chase

At 8pm Saturday evening, the winner of the most coveted award in all of College Football will be announced. Winning the Heisman Trophy is not only historical, but it is the key to a guaranteed huge contract and shot in the pros. The five finalists for the award were given out last night, and they are:
-From USC, Quarterback Matt Leinart and all-around back Reggie Bush.
-From Utah Quarterback Alex Smith.
-From Oklahoma, Quarterback Jason White and Freshman Running Back sensation Adrian Peterson.

Now there has been a lot of hoopla made about Mr. Peterson. His remarkable season has been eye-opening if for no other reason than the fact that he is a freshman doing what only upper-classmen tend to do at his position. Despite his incredible run, it has been consistently noted that no freshman has ever won the Heisman. As a result, many sports analysts and critics have been 'O-pining' to get Peterson heavy consideration despite his freshman status.

Well call me biased but I tend to disagree with the chorale of people calling for Peterson to win the trophy. I do so objectively because I know of at least one other freshman running back that should also be considered if Peterson is to win. That running back being true freshman Michael Hart from the Wolverines at the University of Michigan.

So, if you’re reading this and you disagree, you probably think that I’m biased because Michigan is my favorite team (it is) or that I went to U of M (I did), or that I haven’t followed Peterson (I have) or that I’m just plain crazy (trust me, I’m not). So let me run the comparisons.

Rushing:
Michael Hart is a true freshman that barely played in the 1st 2 games of the Wolverines season because U of M hadn’t decided on a starting tailback yet. He was 1 of 4 tailbacks competing for the spot, including senior tailback David Underwood. He averaged 4.6 yards on 8 carries. If you count those games he averaged 5.3 yds/carry and 124.7 yds/game. If you take those games out, he averaged 5.4 yds/carry and 151 yds/game. He also had a stretch of 3 consecutive games where he went for over 200 yards.

Adrian Peterson is a true freshman that started all 12 games of Oklahoma’s season. He racked up 1, 843 yards averaging 5.9 yds/carry. He also came up big in close games and in the big games. He also had three games where he rolled for over 200 yards.
Advantage: Peterson

Receiving:
What makes a good running back that much better is his ability to receive as well as run. Hart, averaged 21.2 yards/game receiving with an average of 9.3 yards/reception

Not much can be said for Peterson here who only caught 3 balls for 6 total receiving yards in 12 games.
Advantage: Hart

Scoring:
Hart had 9 rushing TD’s as well as 1 receiving for a total of 10 in 9 full games played.

Peterson scored 15 rushing TD’s in 12 games.
Advantage: Draw on the basis that had Hart played 3 more full games like Peterson, statistically they would’ve both averaged just over 1 TD a game.

Surrounding Personnel:
The Wolverine’s had quite a group of Wide Receiver’s to keep the defense busy. However, Hart was being handed the ball from a True Freshman Quarterback, Chad Henne, which made both major backfield positions targets for opposing defenses.

Peterson who had a core of WR’s to take the defensive pressure off of him as well, was being handed the ball from last year’s Heisman winner Jason White at QB. This took more pressure off of Peterson and allowed him to focus solely on running the ball.
Advantage: Hart because he did more with less with respect to supporting cast experience.

Conference:
The Big Ten conference is historically known as a “run, run, pass” conference, so the defenses are primarily designed to stop the run and then the pass. That means that Hart had to run against "stop the run" defenses.

The Big 12 conference is more of a spread offense conference which means that they are more likely to throw than to run. This is a huge advantage for running backs in that conference since the defenses are centered around stopping the pass.

Advantage: Hart because he was highly successful at tailback in a "run" conference.

When you add up Hart’s total offense, his numbers look much better when compared to Peterson’s. And don’t forget that Peterson played 12 full games whereas Hart only played 9 full games. When you consider that factor, Hart’s all-purpose yardage of 1,605 could’ve easily been over 2,000 had he been the starting running back beginning in game 1 of the season. That in comparison to Petersons 1,849 yards in a full season.

And no doubt Peterson’s total yards on the ground look impressive, but it’s much easier for him to focus on rushing when he has last year’s Heisman winner throwing to veteran Wide Receiver’s. He never has to consider receiving.

I am not trying to take away anything from Adrian Peterson, he has had a phenomenol season. However, I am trying to squash this notion that he deserves to win the Heisman and that his Freshman status should be overlooked. My point is that he arguably isn’t even the best freshman running back in the nation. And you can’t give the award for best College Player in the Nation to a guy who isn’t even the clear number one player at his position.

Unfortunately, the Heisman trophy has never been about rewarding the best player in College football. It has rather been about rewarding the best offensive player (quarterback, running back or sometimes wide receiver) in College football on a winning team according to Sportswriters and Sports commentators. So the media has done a great job of making a sympathy argument for Peterson by saying that “it’s not fair if the voters don’t vote for Peterson just because he is a freshman.” By repeating this chant every seven minutes for the last month and a half, I’m sure that many of the voters will give in without looking at all of the data.

Maybe they’ll feel some sense of accomplishment for breaking the tradition of not awarding the trophy to a freshman. Maybe they’ve just been duped by the media’s whining. Or maybe they’ll just be wrong. But I’m begging them, vote for Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, Jason White, Bob Dole, Ross Perot, me; just don’t vote for Adrian Peterson, he doesn’t deserve it!

-Maelstrom