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Players Who Would Have Won the Heisman if the Vote Came After the Post-Season

+10 HS
MiamiBuckeye's picture
June 12, 2021 at 12:02pm
73 Comments

This is a pretty simple exercise. I've always thought it was a mistake to award the Heisman while there's still football left to play. For one thing, A LOT of significance can happen in bowl season/the playoffs and it's really unfair to discount that entirely. For another thing, things like the "Heisman curse" can probably weigh on the mind of a winner who's then expected to live up to the hype in a postseason game (not that they don't already feel a ton of pressure, to be fair). 

So, if the Heisman vote always had included every game in the season up to and including the championship game, who might have benefited? 

One obvious answer to me is Ezekiel Elliott in 2014. No way that he doesn't win the Heisman over Marriota if the voters had to take into consideration his monstrous 3-game run where he paved over Wisconsin, Alabama, and Oregon to the tune of 700+ total yards and 8 touchdowns to finish the season with 2000+ total yards (1878 rushing) and 18 touchdowns. 

But I'm sure there are other examples. I feel like a lot of Heisman winners who went on to lose their bowl games/title games probably wouldn't have won it had the vote occurred a few weeks later. Tim Tebow in 2007 is a good example. No one's going to win a Heisman after losing to Michigan and finishing 9-4. 

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