COMMENTARY : Heisman Balloting to Probably Have a Major Oversight

The word is out. Andre Ware of Houston has grabbed the Heisman Trophy by its venerable old bronze stiff-arm and on Saturday afternoon, when the results of one of the most congested races in history are announced, he will be the winner. That’s nice ... for Andre. Not so for the Heisman, which should go to Major Harris of West Virginia.

It has been a long autumn for the squatty halfback statue awarded each year to the outstanding player in college football. Used to be the Heisman gathered itself in September for a long, noble run through the fall, its candidates (its winner, often) as plain as Penn State helmets. No more. Now the Heisman is caught in a clutter of straw polls and phone-ins (call 1-900-LEON HART to cast your vote), and all it takes to be a candidate are three good games and the proper title: Heisman Trophy Candidate. How else to explain the presence of Air Force’s Dee Dowis, a nice guy and good football player who flat-out doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with the honor?

So now it’s a mess. The roll of Heisman candidates swelled to a dozen at different points in the season and CBS-TV has invited eight finalists to its ceremony. It’s a criteria problem: apples vs. oranges. It’s no more possible to compare Tony Rice to Andre Ware than Springsteen to Pavarotti (well, maybe a little more possible, but anyway).

Heisman voters are thus forced to make a subjective decision. They can study all the tape and examine all the statistics and interview all the coaches and scouts they wish, but it still comes down to: Who do you think is the best college player in the country? And if Ware (or Anthony Thompson of Indiana) wins, it’s because not enough voters have the courage to look past the arithmetic.

Ware is a good college quarterback, maybe a great one. He has thrown for 4,299 yards and 44 touchdowns, both Southwest Conference records. His average game is 33-for-52, 430 yards and four touchdowns. By any measure, these are staggering statistics. And Houston has another game to play, against Rice on Saturday, so you can chalk up another quarter mile through the air.

But what of the competition? And what of the system that allowed Ware to attempt 52 passes a game? The SWC is woefully weak, and Houston lost to the only two decent teams in the conference: Texas A&M; and Arkansas. And the run-and-shoot offense loads up on short patterns designed to let talented wideouts tack on big yardage after the catch. I know, I know, the new argument is that scouts say Ware would be a big-time QB in any system. But in another system, he wouldn’t have the mega-numbers and without those, he wouldn’t even be a candidate.

Last year Barry Sanders of Oklahoma State won the Heisman, by a landslide, on numbers alone. And by his performance as an NFL rookie, he has authenticated the honor. But there is a significant difference between Sanders’ stats and Ware’s stats. While both ground yardage and passing yardage are tied to the offensive line, the quarterback benefits from the receivers’ yardage as well. It’s not a bogus statistic, but it’s not nearly as honest as rushing yards.

Then why not Thompson, you ask? Because his 1,790 yards aren’t in the same class as Sanders’ 2,296 a year ago and because 377 of them came on 52 carries against overmatched Wisconsin. And his NCAA career touchdown and points records are inadmissible. It’s a 1989 award. He is another diligent player with a good professional future who doesn’t deserve the award.

It’s a slippery thing, this Heisman. It should go to somebody with solid statistics for a strong team that played good competition. And somebody who was exciting and possessed, perhaps, some abstract quality, like courage or leadership. Sounds corny, but college football could use a little corny. That narrows the field to two: Harris and Rice. If Notre Dame had beaten Miami to finish the regular season 12-0 (with 24 consecutive wins), Rice would have deserved it. He was the leader of the best college team in more than a decade, without whom it would have lost at least three games and won no championships. But as soon as the Irish lost, all bets were off. Rice was tethered to his team’s perfection.

That leaves Harris. He passed this year for 1,939 yards and rushed for 919, accounting for 22 touchdowns for a team that went 8-2-1. The Mountaineers played three bowl teams (1-1-1). Moreover, Harris remained the most innovative, resourceful player in the country, and without him, West Virginia would have been mediocre for the last three years and terrible this year. You just had to watch him to understand.

All that was required was a brain, not a calculator.