Heisman Rivalry Gets Far-Fetched

I hear the Heisman Trophy will be up for grabs today when San Diego State and Miami meet in Mission Valley.

This is interesting.

And ridiculous.

How is this going to be contested? Will there be one of those Run, Pass and Kick competitions at halftime?

I can see it now. Roll the drums and here comes Miami’s Gino Torretta out of the tunnel at the east end of the stadium and SDSU’s Marshall Faulk out of the tunnel at the west end. Mano a mano it will be.

No?

This competition will take place during the game?

You’ve got to be kidding.

Faulk, running at less than 100% because of a knee injury, is going to be measured according to what he does against one of the most imposing defenses in college football? He is going to be measured according to what he does against the unbeaten and top-ranked Hurricanes?

What Faulk does against Miami should be part of how his season is evaluated. That’s fair. This game is part of his season. However, the circumstances should be taken into consideration as well.

And Faulk should not be measured against what anyone on Miami’s roster, particularly a quarterback, does in this game. Torretta will be throwing the football against one of college football’s most pitiful defenses. SDSU plays 50 Is Not Enough defense, as in 50 points do not necessarily assure victory. Torretta threw for 485 yards against SDSU last year.

You could run the Ghost of the Galloping Ghost against Miami’s defense, and he would be lucky to gain 100 yards, particularly with a gimpy knee.

And what Faulk does will be measured against what Torretta does?

Torretta could easily pass for 500 against SDSU.

Would that assure him of winning the Heisman Trophy?

If having a big game against SDSU’s defense is a barometer for Heisman Trophy voting, there wouldn’t be enough Heisman Trophies to go around. Fresno State’s Trent Dilfer would have taken one home last week. Brigham Young quarterbacks would have won dozens of Heismans over the years.

Winning a Heisman Trophy against SDSU’s defense would be like winning a beauty contest against schnauzers. Torretta against SDSU’s defense is a thoroughbred against a plow horse.

No contest.

So how in the world can something as prestigious as the Heisman Trophy be determined in such a scenario?

How in the world did Gino Torretta become such a hot candidate in the first place?

The Heisman Trophy has been Marshall Faulk’s to lose almost since Day One of the 1992 season. Certainly, what he did in those first three games against USC, BYU and UCLA put him so far in front he would have had to run backward to lose it.

What did happen was that his whole team did a backslide and dragged him with it. He personally has done nothing to weaken his candidacy. With the exception of last week against Fresno State, when he was injured early, losses have been incurred in spite of him rather than because of him.

From the start of this season, however, network television’s talking heads have been looking every which way for an alternative candidate. It was as if they needed to fill air time as empty as their heads. They had Georgia’s Garrison Hearst for a while. Anyone would do if he was worth five minutes of air time and had a couple of nice film clips.

Lo and behold, these geniuses settled on Gino Torretta as an alternative. He did not have the greatest statistics in the world, but they weren’t at all bad, either. What was more important, he was given credibility by the fact that he plays the glamour position on what suffices as the nation’s glamour team.

Torretta was an easy sell as a Heisman alternative.

Lo and behold, a look at the schedule revealed that this alternative candidate would be going head-to-head against the real thing on Nov. 28 in San Diego.

Bingo!

And wouldn’t you just know that the Eggtoss, Softball Programming Network, known more informally as ESPN, would be the one to nationally televise this “showdown” its own talking heads were principally responsible for creating?

I’ll be darned.

I suppose they will flash a graphic on the screen, you know, 1-900-HEISMAN, so viewers can call on their push-button telephones and punch in their preference.

And Faulk’s knee is such that it won’t even be determined whether he is playing until after warm-ups.

This supposed showdown really is a farce, especially since Faulk and Torretta will never be on the field at the same time, assuming Faulk is on the field at all. It might be meaningful if Torretta had to tackle Faulk, which would be a comical sight to see, or Faulk had to defend against Torretta, which he could probably do as well as anyone on the so-called defense.

What it comes down to is that Heisman voters really couldn’t go wrong should they vote for the quarterback on the nation’s top-ranked team . . . but it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

Marshall Faulk is the right way to go, and what happens today really has little to do with it.