A white running back at the college level and higher has become a rarity in recent years, although Stanford’s Toby Gerhart, also white, was a Heisman finalist in 2009 when he finished runner-up to Alabama’s Mark Ingram.
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The 2015 Heisman Trophy finalists were announced Monday night, and the list was short and sweet, with just three players eligible to be named the top overall college football player.
Henry and McCaffrey will be trying to break a streak of five straight quarterbacks winning college football’s top honor.
But as favorites struggled (running backs Leonard Fournette of LSU and Ezekiel Elliott of Ohio State) or got hurt (quarterbacks Trevone Boykin of TCU and Seth Russell of Baylor), the dynamic changed. He’s already broken Herschel Walker’s SEC single-season rushing record, reaching 1,986 yards with a big league championship game performance in Saturday’s 29-15 win over Florida.
He’s 16-0 as starter for Clemson, and passed for more than more than 400 yards in Saturday’s shootout win against North Carolina for the conference title.
For the season, Watson has 3512 passing yards with 30 passing touchdowns and 11 interceptions. The last three Heisman winners were OR quarterback Marcus Mariota, Florida State signal-caller Jameis Winston, and Texas A&M QB Johnny Manziel.
Derrick Henry #2 of the Alabama Crimson Tide rushes against the Auburn Tigers at Jordan Hare Stadium on November 28, 2015 in Auburn, Alabama. He has over 3,000 yards passing with 750 yards rushing and has accrued a total of 41 touchdowns.
Meanwhile, as great as Henry and McCaffrey were, nobody is going to cry foul if Clemson’s Watson were to hear his name called. It has been a dream of mine to bring my mom to NY and be a Heisman finalist. But I don’t think I saw a better player all year, at least not on offense.
The official Heisman ballots are in, but now it’s time to cast your vote in our annual People’s Heisman poll. I guess leading the nation in rushing yards, rushing TDs and points scored isn’t good enough to overcome the SEC bias, so … sorry, am I ranting?
Highlights: Henry leads the country in both rushing yards and rushing touchdowns.
Examine this year’s three Heisman finalists and there are a couple of common denominators.
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“Deshaun Watson is the epitome of what the Heisman Trophy is all about”, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. And if there’s a Heisman candidate that has meant the most to their team, it’s Deshaun Watson. At the same time, national championships are what fans want at Alabama, and they’re what players come to Alabama to play for. Clemson was ranked No. 1 in all six of the College Football Playoff polls.
