Your 2017 Heisman Trophy winner is Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield. After an outstanding season where he led the Sooners to a Big 12 title and a spot in the College Football Playoff, Mayfield’s selection wasn’t a major surprise.
Stanford finished 2nd in the Heisman race for the 5th time since 2009
The Cardinal’s amazing run continues.
Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Your Heisman runner-up? It was Stanford running back Bryce Love, beating out Louisville QB Lamar Jackson.
That’s the fifth time Stanford finished second in the Heisman voting since 2009.
- Running back Toby Gerhart missed out on the 2009 award by just a handful of votes to Alabama running back Mark Ingram.
- Then the next year, Andrew Luck finished second behind Cam Newton.
- And then the next season, Luck finished second again, this time to Baylor’s Robert Griffin III.
- In 2015, Christian McCaffery, despite the best efforts of the Heisman meme guy, finished second to Derrick Henry of Alabama.
- And in 2017, Love finished second to Mayfield.
Why is this happening? Well, one reason is just plain ol’ bad luck.
I mean, you can’t complain about not winning the Heisman Trophy the year that Newton did. Luck was very solid and all, but that’s just running into a buzzsaw.
And while the 2011 race was closer, Griffin turning Baylor into an interesting, nationally relevant program for the first time in a generation was a massive story that would have been difficult to overcome.
Part of winning the Heisman is being awesome at just the right time, and Luck had the bad luck of being really good at college football in the wrong years.
Part of this might be because Stanford wasn’t always quite good enough of a team.
Gerhart’s 2009 Stanford squad finished 8-5 and wasn’t ranked in the final AP Poll, and 2017’s Cardinal team has four losses and is currently ranked 15th. Over the last 25 years or so, Heisman winners almost always come from nationally elite programs, those in the top 10, or even higher. A superlative statistical season can help a candidate crack the finalist lists without being on an excellent team, and rarely, even win (hi, Lamar Jackson!), but that’s pretty rare.
And yes, East Coast Bias is probably at least some kind of factor here.
There are 870 media members who vote on the Heisman, but only 145 of them are in the “Far West” region. Stanford plays a lot of games awfully late at night, when national media members based in the Eastern time zone are less likely to be tuned in. There’s only been one Heisman winner who played in the Pacific time zone over the last decade (Marcus Mariota in 2014).
But getting this close to the Heisman this many times is a hell of an accomplishment.
Stanford recruits well these days, but it’s no Alabama or Ohio State on the recruiting trail. To be this close to having the best player in the country basically every other year over the last decade or so is a testament to how well Stanford has evaluated and developed talent.
Eventually, they’ll probably win this trophy.
And if not, hey, nobody can take Jim Plunkett’s 1970 win away from you, Cardinal fans.
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