SCOTT JACOBS

Last year, Tim Tebow won the Heisman, but his team was nowhere close to winning a title.  This year, Tim Tebow finished third in the Heisman ballot, but he’ll get a chance to win another trophy twice: the BCS National Championship trophy.

In an extremely close vote, that actually saw the third place finisher (Tebow) finish with the most first place votes, Sooners QB Sam Bradford came away with college football’s most prestigious award.  Bradford, who led Oklahoma to a 12-1 record, threw 48 touchdowns, just 6 picks, and directed a potent Sooners’ offense to the most points in college football history.  Oklahoma’s thrashing of the previously unbeaten Texas Tech Red Raiders on national TV when they put up 65, and Bradford threw for four TD’s and no picks probably propelled him to victory over his two other competitors, Florida’s Tebow, and Texas’ Colt McCoy.  But there’s no doubt that Longhorn fans will have something else to gripe about after their school lost to Oklahoma in something else.

And while Bradford had a fabulous year, would he have won the award if it was McCoy that had just led the Longhorns to a Big 12 title, and a berth in the BCS National Championship game?  That’s where the debate gets interesting.  Please know: I’m not saying Bradford wasn’t worthy of the award.  He totally was.  In his last four games Bradford was spot on brilliant.  He threw for 14 touchdowns, and not a single pick.  And in leading the Sooners to over 60 points in their last five games, and over 50 in nine games this year, Bradford helped the Sooners fly into the national title game.  Well, kind of.

Texas fans will point out that Bradford was outperformed by McCoy in Texas’ 45-35 win in Dallas on October 11th, but that point is moot, because it hasn’t gotten the Longhorns anywhere since the regular season ended. Texas felt they got snubbed when Oklahoma jumped them the last week of the season.  Their fans are sure to feel more angst after McCoy lost to Bradford by a measley 122 points in the Heisman vote.

Lost in the shuffle was Tebow, who who finished last but lost by just 151 votes.

Tebow got 309 first place votes.  The Heisman winner, Bradford collected 300, and McCoy got 266.  Close?  This race was as tight as it gets.  And it really could have gone either way.

Mitch voted for Tebow in the Sports Bloggers Heisman, and I went for McCoy, but ultimately it was Bradford who came away the victor.  He’ll get a chance to make it two for two when Oklahoma takes on Florida in the BCS National title game in Miami on January 8th. Though if recent history is any indication Bradford’s Heisman victory will send his team into the loser’s column. The last five Heisman winners (not from USC) including Sooners QB Jason White all all lost their ensuing bowl game

For Oklahoma they hope that trend doesn’t hold true. And because of Tim Tebow’s inability to claim his second Heisman, Archie Griffin (the former Ohio State great)  still remains the only college football player ever to win the award twice.

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