The Meat Parade
Written by: Bernie B.
For anyone that has been following the Heisman for any length of period of time, knows that it should be aptly renamed “The Meat Parade”. Because that is exactly what it is. It is extremely difficult for me to write this piece, as I am overflowing with disgust and pure unadulterated rage based on the outcome of this year’s heist, er, Heisman.
Mark Ingram? Really? For those of you who may not be aware, I am going to reset Ingram’s meat parade award. He rushed for 1,542 yards over a 13 game span. That’s 118 yards per game. Is that impressive? In the NFL, yes. In college? No. I’m not saying that Ingram isn’t good, I’m just saying that 1,500 yards in college is about as shocking and surprising as the big 10 losing by 30+ points in a meaningful bowl game. Oh. He played in the SEC this year? Thanks for the heads up, ESPN. You made that painfully clear throughout the decade as you chose not to cover any other conference. Thank you. However, he also played against non-SEC teams as well. Not only non-SEC, but also non D I-A teams as well. Yes. That 118-ypg average includes games against Florida International, North Texas, and Chattanooga. I’ll give you a few minutes to guess which of those teams are technically Div I-A and which are Div I-AA. When you are surrounded by the talent that a school like Alabama has, are you telling me that you couldn’t insert 20 other running backs from other schools and get equal if not better production? Could you imagine CJ Spiller in that offense? To me, Ingram is a product of his system; Alabama is not a product of Ingram. Furthermore, the kid is a sophomore. When Larry Fitzgerald got hosed on the Heisman with Pitt, that set the bar for sophomores not being allowed to win the Heisman.
Until the great white hype, mediocre bible humper Tim Teblow won it for Florida. That opened up the floodgates as Bradford won it last season, and Ingram this year. Three sophomores in a row. If the award is given to “sophomore with most media hype on the #1 team in the country”, then Ingram, congratulations.
However, last time I checked, the Heisman is theoretically given to the best college football player in the nation. If Nebraska could sneak in on ESPN once every season in between Lou Holtz’s dentures slurping on Charlie Weis and Jimmy Clausen and College Football Live: The SEC Mini Series, perhaps voters would have known who Ndamukong Suh was before Wrestlemania, er, the Big 12 championship game (this will be explored at a later date, with much more venom and rage involved). Before we get into Suh, lets just brush over the other “candidates”.
Toby Gerhart had a much more impressive season. He however, has two fatal qualities. One, he plays in the pac-10. If I had to play against Stanford, I could take a shit on the 50-yard line, and that would be a better defensive unit than anything Gerhart saw in conference this season. Second, he’s a white running back. Moving along.
Tim Tebow. You were invited to the ceremony because A. you already stole a trophy and B. this will be the last time you are relevant as a football player, and wont be in a NFL locker room in three seasons unless you are picked up by some team to lead prayers during half time. That is if you are available and not circumcising polar bears in Antarctica.
Colt McCoy. If the Heisman was a lifetime achievement award, by all means, give it to McCoy. Really. I’d be ok with that. Kind of like when you give an actor/director/producer/musical artist an award, even though their latest album or movie sucked, but you are afraid they might die before they make something award-worthy again, so you throw them the pity grammy/oscar. However, it is not, so he does not deserve it. So there is one logical choice.
The defensive tackle out of Nebraska who was by far the single most dominating player in college football. NOBODY wreaked as much havoc on defense as he did. More importantly, NOBODY changed more game plans, strategies, and outcomes of games than he did. No matter who stepped on the field with or against him, he was the BEST player out there.
Now, to focus on the Survivor Series, er, Big 12 championship game for a second, lets look at some of the game’s performers. Texas RB Tre’ Newton, who had scored touchdowns 3 games in a row, and had posted yards per carry averages in his last three games of 11.4, 5.5, and 6.4 respectively, was held to 36 yards on 19 carries, for zero touchdowns. The 1.9 ypc was the lowest output of the season. Well if Newton couldn’t get it done, then surely Mr. McCoy and his career 1,500 rushing yards and 20 td rushes would, right? Wrong. Colt got blown up for -20 yards on 17 carries for a -1.2 ypc. The “-“ sign you are seeing before those numbers is a negative sign. As in, every time Colt rushed, he was moving backwards from the line of scrimmage, and getting tackled there. No biggie. Because while Colt is known as a dual threat QB, it’s REALLY his passing game that’s taken him places. Entering the game he already threw for over 3,300 yards and had a td:int ratio of 27:9. Further, he had a 72% completion percentage entering the game. Sounds like I’m promoting him for a Heisman campaign, huh? Well, had he never crossed paths with Mr. Suh, I may have been. Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t the case. In the Royal Rumble, er, big 12 championship game, McCoy successfully posted 0 passing td, 184 yards, a 55.6% completion %, and three INT. Just a quick reminder, this game was to keep Texas undefeated, and for a chance to play in the cage match, er, bowl game with Alabama. In the biggest game of McCoy’s career, he had his first 0-touchdown game of the season and threw MORE interceptions than he had in the last EIGHT games COMBINED. Even better still, he was sacked NINE times. NINE times. If I told you that player A threw for less than 200 yards, 0 td’s, racked up 3 picks, and was sacked nine times, would you say- “that guy gets my Heisman vote!”? Then I would say, oh by the way, that was the performance of a 4-year starter surrounded by the best offensive talent in the country in the most important game of his career that decided an undefeated season and bid for the title fight, er, game. What would you say?
I don’t care if Suh wasn’t even invited to the Heisman ceremony. I don’t care that if they voted on every player on every college team in the country, and he was ranked as the 2nd least deserving player in the country for the Heisman, AS LONG AS the LEAST deserving player was Colt Mccoy. He made Colt Mccoy his bitch. He made Mccoy call him daddy. And he made Mccoy beg for more and say please. And he finished BEHIND mccoy in the Heisman vote? Are you fucking kidding me!??! If that game was in-fact the national championship, and not the fucking local dog and pony show, this performance would be as highly regarded as what Vince young did to USC in the rose bowl a few years back. It was one of, if not, THE most impressive defensive performance we have ever seen in college football, and he finished BEHIND the kid with a 0 td, 3 pick, 9 sack game? I can only assume that the Bush administration was involved in the voting process, because I can’t remember if I’ve seen an election so rigged, biased, corrupt, and incorrect since 2000. I wish I was a better writer, because I truly cannot put into words (do they even exist?) how much of a sham the vote is when after a game like that, the disgraced gets more votes than the guy that delivered the most entertaining and dominating performance of the season.
Ok. Well, I’ve now written for an hour and a half and explored everything except for the main purpose of this article- translating my man crush on Suh into an argument for him being the Heisman winner. Suh had been terrorizing, disrupting, and destroying offenses all season long. He was doing this from quite possibly the least publicized defensive position in the game- the defensive tackle spot. Because of this, he won’t have the Terrell Suggs twenty-something sacks to back up his argument. In the Texas game alone, he had twelve tackles. If I were telling you the stats for a 49er game, you would probably think I’m talking about MLB Patrick Willis. I’m not. I’m talking about DT Ndamukong Suh. He had SEVEN tackles for loss. That’s a good SEASON for most players. He had two quarterback hurries. He had 4.5 sacks. 4.5 sacks. In one game. Not impressed yet? He had more sacks in this GAME by HIMSELF than McCoy was sacked by any TEAM in a single game in his entire CAREER. Just to add a dash of perspective. Texas, which arguably has the nation’s most explosive and talented offense, up until this game was averaging 43 points per game. Look at their final scores. You would think Texas was an ivy league basketball team as opposed to a college football team just by looking at their game log. A Suh-led Nebraska comes into Texas, to play in front of 80,000 texas fans at a neutral (try to keep a straight face) site in Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, and holds Texas to their lowest point total of the season- 10 points. I’m not going to count the three points that were scored after the clock expired. Why would you? That would be like counting the points in a shoot around before the start of a NBA game. You wouldn’t do it. The game isn’t in progress at either point. But I digress. They hold Texas to a quarter of their average point total. This isn’t a rare occasion either. Nebraska allowed final scores of 3, 9, 16, 0, 12, 31, 9, 10, 3, 17, 3, 20 and 10 points. If they had a functional offense that resembled anything better than the mighty ducks pre-The Flying V, you would expect those scores to result in a 12-1, 11-2 team at worst.
Suh single handedly shot down a Heisman candidate that looked like a lock in just a short three-hour period. Ndamukong Suh is the ONLY logical choice for Heisman. In fact, he was SUCH a worthy winner, that he was the first defensive player EVER to win the AP player of the year award. Jay Mariotti is a member of the AP. When JAY MARIOTTI is making more sense than your entire voting roll call, its time to revisit the purpose of the award. Here is his final pre-bowl stat line: 1 Interception, 82 tackles, 19.5 tackles for loss, 12 sacks, 10 passes broken up, 19 quarter back hurries, 1 forced fumble, and for good measure, a measly 3 kicks blocked. From the DT position, that’s the equivalent to like 47 sacks as a DE, and 213 pass deflections from a DB. Ladies and gentleman, your 2009 Heisman trophy winner! Now, if only we could find Mark Ingram in the middle of that meat parade thrown in his honor…
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