Besides Bama: Top 10 Best SEC Offensive Players - FunnyMaine

tusks_n_raider said:

Yeah I kind of shook my head on that pick too. Though besides Julio he's probably had the best Combo College + NFL career so far stats wise.

I personally might would say Josh Reed from LSU for a WR choice.

He put up Top 5 All-Time receiving yards in 2 regular seasons of play with no extra bowl game. Dude was a beast for LSU.

He also won the Biletnikoff in 2001 and is the only SEC WR to win it besides Coop.

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CraigD said:

Maybe Josh Reed is who I meant rather than Kevin Faulk. Thanks!

EDIT: After a quick check of the record books either of those would be good choices for an all-time list.

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Mystical said:

Have to agree with the number 1.

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selmaborntidefan said:

I can't argue hard against it. I would have Herschel there, but I can't really quibble with the choice.

However, Herschel should have been number two at worst.

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Mystical said:

I never saw Herschel play that may be part of my bias.

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selmaborntidefan said:

Not to sound like an old geezer here, but this isn't "really" any different than it has been since I began watching CFB in 1978.


What used to go on was ABC (who did most of the broadcasts then - ESPN was just starting in 1979) would hype some skill position player for a big name school. This was back in the days when you could not appear on TV more than three times per year (not counting bowl games). So the only actual Heisman candidates usually played for a Blue Blood or borderline Blue Blood school most of the time unless they got the hype. And back then you HAD to be at least a junior for any consideration.

Let's take the strange case of Herschel Walker, proof if any was needed of how hype overcame reality.


In 1980, Walker showed up out of nowhere and led Georgia to a national title. Who won the Heisman? A guy named George Rogers of South Carolina. WHY did Rogers win the Heisman? MOSTLY because he got the hype and (most important here) he was a senior and Walker was a freshman.

Compare the stats:
Rogers - 297 attempts for 1781 yards, 6.0 ypc, 14 TDs on an 8-3 team
Walker - 274 attempts for 1616 yards, 5.9 ypc, 15 TDs on an 11-0 team

Walker also had 7 catches for 70 yards while Rogers had 7 for 23 yards. WALKER had the better "yards from scrimmage" stat.

Also, in a head-to-head game, Walker gained 219 yards to Rogers's 168.....oh, and Rogers fumbled the game away with five minutes left and his team trailing, 13-10, the final score. (On an unrelated note, y'all remember the Mark Ingram Sr coverage via Verne? Well, in 1980, Rogers's father was released from prison just ten days prior to the game after serving time for an unpremeditated murder, not that we should blame the son, but back stories like that always get played up).

I'm NOT saying Rogers was undeserving. It's pretty hard to say that about the nation's leading rusher in yardage. Also, Walker was undone by the fact that UGA played Ga Tech that year on November 29......the Heisman ballots were due in on November 28. In that game, Walker rushed for 205 yards and 3 TDs to bring his season total to what's above.



In other words, the voters didn't see how close the two were statistically until AFTER they had voted. It likely would not have mattered - freshmen simply weren't given any consideration in 1980, which was less than 10 years after freshmen were deemed eligible to play. But the insanity is that Walker finished THIRD, not only behind Rogers but behind a defensive player, Pitt's Hugh Green.

Just go look at the Heisman voting that year - of the top ten players, EIGHT of them are juniors and seniors. The two exceptions were Walker (freshman, 3rd) and Michigan's Anthony Carter (soph, tenth), who probably should have been higher given that he played a skill position on a 10-2 team and had as many TDs as Rogers did.



But George Rogers:
a) was a senior
b) on a winning team who
c) had had a great career (1,000 yard rushing seasons his last 3 years)


In the Heisman voting of 1980, this was enough.


Bo Jackson was hyped for the award in 1983, but Mike Rozier put up some eye-popping numbers. (Of course, the fact Nebraska's schedule was easy and Auburn's 1983 team at the time played the 2nd toughest schedule in the entire history of CFB was not taken into account, but I digress). In 1984, Bo missed six games with an injury, wiping out his chances. And in 1985, Jackson - who did deserve it - barely scraped by media favorite Chuck Long, the Iowa QB.


And speaking of hype........why was Chuck Long second in the voting in 1985 but Vinny Testaverde was FIFTH?

Long - 231 of 351, 26 TD, 15 INT, 2978 yards
Vinny - 216 of 352, 21 TD, 15 INT, 3238 yards

Long was a senior, Vinny a junior. Both played for top four-ranked one loss teams (in the reg season). Yes, Long had more TDs than Vinny did, but Miami beat #3 Oklahoma in Norman and #10 FSU in Tallahassee while losing to #5 Florida in the opener; Long went 1-1 against two top teams, beating Michigan, 12-10, in a game where he didn't lead them to a single offensive TD (they won on a last play FG) and lost to Ohio St in Columbus. To be fair, Long did have a pretty good day throwing the ball against Michigan, but the fact remains he never got them in the end zone.

But Long played for a Big Ten team that played both the Michigan and Ohio St games on TV while Vinny T played his big games against a team serving a two-year TV ban (Florida), a team not yet really thought of as a power (FSU's rise wasn't really until 1987), and Oklahoma. He was also on TV routing Notre Dame, which might also have ticked off the then tongue bathing Irish press.


In 1986, Vinny T won the Heisman. How? Well, you have to parse stats. It was right about now that the PASSING stats began to be weighted VERY heavily to teams in the lower echelon of Division I. In 1986, Vinny threw for 2553 yards (26-9 TD/INT) on an unbeaten team in the regular season. Vinny wasn't in the top ten in passing yards in 1986, but he DID lead in passing efficiency, TDs, and adjusted yards per attempt. In 1987, Syracuse's Don McPherson threw for 2341 yards (22/11) on an unbeaten team and - just like Vinny T - he led the nation in passing efficiency and adjust yards per attempt and finished third in TDs. McPherson, however, didn't get the hype and lost the award to the guy who did - Notre Dame's Tim Brown.


Do you know what Brown's stats are?

1987 - 39 catches for 846 yards and 3 TDs; 34 rushes for 144 yards and 1 TD; 23 punt returns for 456 yards (19.8); and 34 punt returns for 401 yards and 3 TDs.

Yes.......the guy who won the Heisman played for Notre Dame and scored a grand total of SEVEN TDs on the season on an 8-3 football team. But because THREE of those were on punt returns, this specialist suddenly got hype totally beyond what he deserved and won the award.



Think about it......a guy won the Heisman who was not in the top ten in receptions, yards, touchdowns, yards from scrimmage, punt return yards per return, kickoff return yardage, kickoff return yards......he was NOWHERE near the top. In fact, James Henry of Southern Miss actually had MORE punt return TDs in 1987 than Brown did. On punt returns, Henry bested Brown in EVERY stat, sometimes substantially......and yet most of you have never heard of him.


Why did Tim Brown win the Heisman? Simple - he was the best skill position player on a Notre Dame football team. THAT'S why he won it. Brown was unquestionably a great athlete, but he did not deserve the Heisman that year, either. McPherson, whose team was undefeated, accounted for 28 TDs and
Brown for 7. Those are not even close to similar numbers. The objection, of course, would be that McPherson had such gaudy stats because he played an
easy schedule for Syracuse. That objection DOES have a certain level of merit but McPherson's Syracuse team lit up Penn State, 48-21, a team that beat
Notre Dame by a point. Syracuse also beat Navy by 24 (Notre Dame by 43), Boston College by 28 (Irish by 7), and beat a Pitt team by 14 that Brown's
Irish lost by a 30-22 score.

Again - these guys played FOUR of the same teams and McPherson STILL had the better numbers. Sure, Michigan was ranked when Notre Dame beat them
in the opener, but UM was overrated. And USC (if anyone brings this up) spent the entire year but two weeks out of the rankings because they weren't really that
good, either.


Again....HOW do you vote for Brown over McPherson? Simple - which guy played for Notre Dame and got all the pre-season hype.


Barry Sanders didn't get a lot of hype at the time, and that's why he's one of my faves - he EARNED it, no question.

Andre Ware got it despite nobody seeing him play - mostly because his eye popping stats were only challenged by one guy, Indiana's Anthony Thompson, who played for a 5-6 team.

A few other guys - Gino Torretta (should have been Garrison Hearst), Rashaan Salaam (Ki-Jana Carter), and Charles Woodson (Peyton Manning) - had no business winning the damned thing (although Woodson's was not nearly as bad as Torretta winning). And Michael Vick in 1999, was a lot like Walker in 1980 but, hey, until Larry Fitzgerald finished so high in 2003, they weren't going to do that. TBF, I think Tommie Frazier might have won it in 1994 had he not gone down in September with a blood clot.


This is why the whole Ingram winning it tore me up a bit. I'm glad our guy finally won it, but......the award is one of the most over-hyped awards often given to a guy who just happens to be in the right place at the right time.

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selmaborntidefan said:

Yes and that goes into it.

But I'll be fair by saying it wasn't a slam dunk either way.

I think anyone could have chosen Herschel, Bo, or Cam for the top spot and been justified - and probably Tebow as well.

A lot of us think Herschel should have won the Heisman as a freshman but that was never gonna happen in 1980.

I wrote up my thoughts on a previous post about Walker getting passed over:

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