Leaf Is Right Choice For Heisman
True confession: Once upon a time, I almost cast my Heisman ballot for a placekicker.
It was 1982, and Chuck Nelson was a perfect 25-of-25 on field goals for the University of Washington. My half-baked theory was that no other football player in the country was as efficient as Chuck. Efficiency - that was my Heisman hook that year. I even crowed about voting his holder and long snapper second and third.
Then he pushed one wide right in the Apple Cup, Wazzu students paraded the goal posts through Pullman and I rescued my ballot from the outgoing mail in time to vote for John Elway.
Yes, I have succumbed to every Heisman vice and gimmick there is.
Provincialism: Rueben Mayes got my vote in 1984, Steve Emtman in 1981.
Trivial pursuit: Gordie Lockbaum, the two-way terror from Holy Cross. And before him, Joe Dudek of Plymouth State.
Malice: Anybody but a Notre Dame guy.
Hey, it’s not a sacred trust. If you can put Chris Anderson on the City Council, I can try to give Chuck Nelson a lump of bronze.
Even in 1989, when there simply was no such thing as the outstanding player in college football - no such thing as a particularly good player, even - I still closed my eyes and eenie-meanied a vote, mostly to preserve my privileges for years like this, when a legitimate Heisman candidate can be found in almost every huddle.
Sometimes I even vote for the right guy. Like this time.
Today, either Peyton Manning of Tennessee or Charles Woodson of Michigan will be handed the Heisman Trophy and it will only be a mistake, not a travesty.
Sitting in the audience in New York as it happens, aiming the camcorder he bought last week at Huppin’s, will be Ryan Leaf, the outstanding player in college foot ball and - only coincidentally - a junior at Washington State University.
He will be a distant third in the voting and, indeed, already made his concession speech the other night when Manning’s pedigree was being overindulged at an award-a-thon in Orlando, Fla., and several times before that.
“It depends on what you’re voting for,” Leaf said last week. “If the award is just given to the best player, I’d have to go with Charles Woodson because he does so many things.
“But if you believe the Heisman represents what college football is all about, what exemplifies that is Peyton Manning. He came back this year to feel the experience of college football when he could be making millions and millions.”
Magnanimity, thy name is Leaf.
The Heisman is fraught with all sorts of problems - semantic, geographic, hyperbolic - but that’s what makes it the Great American Trophy. Adding to the fuss this year was the foot-in-mouth of Heisman executive director Rudy Riska, who two weeks before the deadline said, “I’d like to see a player like Woodson win it.” He later tried to clarify his position by stating a Woodson victory “would dispel the claim that there is a wall for defensive players” - which still sounds like a hope-he-can to me.
Leaf will finish higher in the voting than any Cougar in history despite such gooberish electioneering - but even as a high school recruit he understood that if it was a Heisman he was after, he should have enrolled at Miami.
It isn’t that his highlights never make SportsCenter. It’s that it isn’t the mindset of the more than 900 Heisman voters that the outstanding player in college football could possibly attend Wazzu.
Beyond that, Heismans are won a year in advance. The notion is that this was Manning’s award to lose coming into the season - and that what he’ll win today is not so much the Heisman but college football’s Irving R. Thalberg Award for Lifetime Achievement. Statistically, Leaf had a better season. Yes, the Cougs lined up against a couple of non-conference cardboard cutouts, but Leaf was out of those games by the third quarter - and he never whiffed the way Manning did against South Carolina.
It’s close, but this season the best quarterback on the field was Leaf.
And that’s the real issue: that only in the absence of a truly great quarterback should a player at any other position win the Heisman. And only in the absence of a dominant running back or receiver should a defensive player get a sniff.
Who is the one player on the field, on every snap aside from punting downs, who can’t screw up if a team expects to succeed? Here’s a hint: starts with a Q.
Woodson is a tremendous athlete, the best cornerback around and a dangerous return man. He’s come up with huge plays in big games. But Michigan lining him up at receiver or using him to run the ball has been a shameless gimmick, intended only to win him the trophy. Name the last cameo to win Best Actor.
The Cougs could play Leaf at tight end, too, if they wished. He’s certainly athlete enough. The fact is, he’s too valuable for that.
If Woodson were as valuable, the Wolverines would play him at quarterback.
And as impressive a defender as Woodson is, there is no statistic to chart the times he’s been beaten on pass coverage or tackles he may have missed. There is no record of just how many of those defensive plays he wasn’t involved in at all. We’re guessing more than half. Leaf? Even in just reading the defense and audibling into a handoff, he has more impact than Woodson shadowing a decoy receiver down the sideline.
Maybe the true measure of a quarterback’s worth is that it’s the only position for which negative statistics are kept: interceptions. You could throw in sacks as well, for it’s often assumed the quarterback didn’t get rid of the ball fast enough; if a running back loses yardage, it’s simply because there was no hole.
Entire game plans are designed to stop Leaf. Parts of game plans are designed to merely avoid Woodson.
Of course, somebody once made the same argument in support of Gino Torretta.
But that’s our theory. And we’re sticking to it.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: The players who lead the pack
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review