From the you-know-it’s-football-season-when file: the first Heisman Trophy poll is out.
Heismanpundit.com and the Orlando Sentinel have partnered to do the weekly straw poll of voters. The voting panel is a relatively small group, considering the actual Heisman has somewhere north of 900 voters now. But still, it’s good fun to be thinking about the stiff-arm statue.
It was for me.
Yours truly is part of the voting panel for this poll. So is Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel; Olin Buchanan, Rivals.com; Tom Dienhart, Rivals.com; Bruce Feldman, ESPN.com; Ted Lewis, New Orleans Times-Picayune; Austin Murphy, Sports Illustrated; B.J. Schecter, Sports Illustrated; Stewart Mandel, Sports Illustrated; and Dick Weiss, New York Daily News. All of us submitted our top five candidates last week.
Mine?
1. Chris “Beanie” Wells, Ohio State
2. Tim Tebow, Florida
3. Pat White, West Virginia
4. Knowshon Moreno, Georgia
5. Michael Crabtree, Texas Tech.
How did my vote jive with the rest of the panelists? Tebow narrowly edged out Wells for the top spot in this week’s poll.
Every week, I’ll be throwing my vote on my blog, offering my thoughts on each of the candidates, then you can go to heismanpundit.com to check out the final results.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:30 am
I would think Tebow would be the odds on favorite going into the year.
Tebow plays in the toughest conference in the nation. He’s a dual threat to run or pass and his Florda team, were it in the Big 10+1 with “Beanie” Wells, there’d be no talk of the Ohio State University other than that of runner up consideration with Michigan.
Wells has some easy numbers coming his way. Let’s see how he does against a tough USC defense, then talk about his worthiness for the Heisman.
Moreno is the real deal in Athens, but he’s a long shot to win this year.
Pat White will have to do Superman stuff to win it at WVA. If West Virginny goes undefeated, Florida loses a couple (so easy to do in the SEC), and Ohio State shrinks again to equally talented teams, then he has a shot.
Michael Crabtree is really good and will have some sky-high numbers thanks to Leach’s blitzkreig attack, but everyone will see that as “just part of the system” instead of individual effort. Crabtree and TTech will have to beat UT and ou for Crabtree to be taken seriously enough for real Heisman chances.
Of all those candidate mentioned, switch the first two spots and those are your early leaders.