From Heisman To Oblivion : Florida State Quarterback Charlie Ward Is Expected to Pick Up Award Today, but That’s Certainly No Guarantee of Stardom in NFL

As the backup quarterback for the Green Bay Packers this season, Ty Detmer has appeared in three games and thrown five passes.

Obviously, the Ty Detmer who stands on the Packer sideline in 1993 is a far cry from the Ty Detmer who won the Heisman Trophy as a junior at Brigham Young in 1990.

On the other hand, Detmer, a ninth-round draft pick in 1992, is a raging success compared to last year’s Heisman winner, Gino Torretta.

A seventh-round pick of the Minnesota Vikings, the former University of Miami quarterback might be the least visible player in the NFL--fourth on a depth chart behind Jim McMahon, Sean Salisbury and Brad Johnson.

Such is life, it seems, for quarterbacks who win college football’s most prestigious award. Heisman today, gone tomorrow.

Of the 17 quarterbacks who have won the Heisman, only two--Roger Staubach and Jim Plunkett--have had outstanding NFL careers.

The name of another quarterback, Florida State’s Charlie Ward, is expected to be called today when this year’s winner is announced at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York, and already the carping has begun.

A wondrous athlete--he is also the starting point guard for Florida State’s basketball team--Ward has set or tied 17 school records this season in leading the Seminoles to an Orange Bowl matchup against Nebraska for the national championship.

Still, NFL scouts wonder whether Ward, a scrambler who has operated almost exclusively from the shotgun formation, has the size and arm strength to have an impact at the next level.

“He didn’t take very many snaps from center, go back, set up and throw the football,” said Larry Lacewell, director of college scouting for the Dallas Cowboys. “I certainly don’t blame Florida State for (using Ward as a shotgun quarterback), because they took advantage of his scrambling ability. But that’s something that has to be addressed (by NFL teams).”

The buzz among NFL scouts is not so much whether Ward can play in the NFL, but whether Tennessee quarterback Heath Shuler, a Troy Aikman-type in his junior season, will make himself eligible for the 1994 draft. Shuler has said he will announce his plans after the Volunteers play Penn State in the Citrus Bowl.

Said the director of college scouting for another NFL team: “Put yourself in my position on draft day. You’d like (to pick) a quarterback, and you have Heath Shuler up there as the first guy (among quarterbacks) and Ward as maybe the fifth guy. That decision is easy, and the Heisman doesn’t enter into it, does it?”

If Ward does slide into Heisman quarterback oblivion, he certainly won’t be alone.

Seven quarterbacks won Heismans between 1962 and 1971, but only two, Staubach and Plunkett, became stars in the NFL.

Among those who stumbled was Gary Beban, the 1967 Heisman winner from UCLA. Beban, 23-5-2 as the Bruins’ starting quarterback, played sparingly as a quarterback, wide receiver and running back for the Washington Redskins before retiring from football after the 1969 season.

“They say Vince Lombardi’s last words were ‘Trade Beban,’ ” joked Beano Cook, college football analyst for ESPN and a Heisman voter for nearly 20 years.

Five quarterbacks have won the Heisman since 1984, and all have been mediocre--or worse--in the NFL.

In 1984, Doug Flutie of Boston College was the talk of the nation, leading his team to a series of comeback victories and a spot in the Cotton Bowl. The 5-foot-10 Flutie wasn’t so magical, however, in four NFL seasons with the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots.

The 1986 Heisman winner, Vinny Testaverde of Miami, was considered a can’t-miss pro prospect. Then he started missing receivers with Tampa Bay.

And then there’s the saga of Andre Ware, who won the Heisman in 1989 as a junior at the University of Houston. Selected by the Detroit Lions in the first round of the 1990 draft, Ware has started six games in three-plus NFL seasons. Long forgotten are those headline-grabbing college statistics that thrust him into the spotlight in ’89.

Some NFL scouts now claim that others in their business got a false sense of Ware’s ability because of Houston’s offensive scheme at the time, the run-and-shoot.

“Everything he did (in the passing game) was either five yards behind the line of scrimmage or 15 yards in front,” said one scout. “If you charted (his passes), you would see very few completions beyond 15 yards. He was not accurate with the deep ball.”

Dallas’ Lacewell says that current college offenses, built to feature the passing game, can make stars--and occasionally Heisman winners--of quarterbacks who might not have the ability to excel in the NFL.

“For your team to play great, you’d better have a (talented) guy underneath that center,” he said. “And he doesn’t have to be a pro quarterback to be that kind of guy.

“I think the (Heisman) award normally goes with the performance of the team, and I think Torretta was a great example of that. Even though he wasn’t a great pro prospect, he kept Miami in a lot of games last year when they wouldn’t have been in them otherwise.

“I think Charlie Ward is a more talented guy than (Torretta), but you still want to know more about what he can do.”

Lacewell and others believe that Ward could greatly enhance his value as an NFL quarterback by playing in the Senior Bowl Jan. 22. Ward’s participation in that NFL-sponsored all-star game at Mobile, Ala., would allow scouts to see him work in an NFL-style offense for a week under the direction of an NFL coaching staff.

“Participating in the Senior Bowl would certainly show a commitment on his part to football,” said Steve Hale, the event’s executive director. “It certainly would answer a lot of the questions about him.”

Ward has not indicated whether he will play in that game, but his participation is doubtful because he would have to skip three of Florida State’s Atlantic Coast Conference basketball games to do so.

Whatever the case, today is expected to be Ward’s day. The future can wait.

“All I know is he’s a winner,” said Flutie, selected outstanding player in the Canadian Football League the last three seasons. “He finds ways to win football games, and he makes plays. He’s in the mold of a Steve Young. It kills me to hear all that other stuff (from NFL scouts).

“I watched an NFL game the other day, and the only time there were any big plays was when the quarterback got the heck out of the pocket and did something on his own. Charlie can make 10 big plays a game by moving around.”

Said ESPN’s Cook: “If some of these NFL scouts had been drafting for us in World War II, Germany and Japan would have won. I don’t want to hear that crap.

“Look, Charlie Ward is one hell of a college football player. That’s what we’re voting on--not whether the guy can play in the NFL, which has become a bore anyway. He is a great college quarterback, and that’s all that matters now.”