Wuerffel a Decent Selection

While Danny Wuerffel may yet turn out to be another Heisman winner who won’t make it big in the NFL, his college numbers were too good to ignore, his accomplishments too many to dismiss and his character almost too good to be true.

Wuerffel, who spent the week accepting awards and making thank-you speeches, saved the best for last Saturday, when Florida’s senior quarterback was named the 62nd winner of the Heisman Trophy in ceremonies at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York.

Wuerffel finished with 1,363 points, 189 more than runner-up Troy Davis, the Iowa State tailback who became the first player in college football to rush for 2,000 yards in consecutive seasons. Arizona State senior quarterback Jake Plummer, who has directed his team to an 11-0 record and No. 2 ranking, finished third with 685 points. Ohio State junior tackle Orlando Pace finished fourth with 599.

Wuerffel gave special thanks to his teammates.

“If you guys are watching, I hope you guys have a sense of accomplishment,” Wuerffel said, “because this is just as much you as it is me.”

Wuerffel, from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., is the second Florida player to win the Heisman. The first was his coach, Steve Spurrier, in 1966.

Wuerffel made it a clean sweep of national awards. He won the Maxwell, Davey O’Brien and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm honors, and scholarships totaling $43,000.

Wuerffel also became the first player to win the Heisman and the the Vincent dePaul Draddy Award, given to the nation’s top scholar-athlete.

Wuerffel will graduate next week with a 3.7 grade-point average in public relations.

While he has been criticized for his awkward throwing motion and being no more than a conduit for Spurrier’s sideline genius, Wuerffel has proven to be a quarterback with uncommon precision, durability and decency.

This season, he has thrown for 3,625 yards and 39 touchdowns. He has set 47 school, Southeastern Conference and NCAA records.

Under his guide, Florida has gone 22-2 the last two seasons. For his career, Wuerffel has passed for 10,875 yards and 114 touchdowns, seven shy of Ty Detmer’s NCAA record of 121.

Will Wuerffel be another Heisman quarterback bust, joining recent winners Gino Torretta (Miami, ‘92) and Andre Ware (Houston, ‘89), who did not make it in the NFL and Charlie Ward (Florida State, 1993) who wasn’t drafted?

It remains to be seen. Wuerffel is considered a middle-round draft pick.

“It’s something I can’t control beyond doing the best I can,” Wuerffel said this week in a pre-Heisman teleconference with reporters.

Although he finished third in last year’s Heisman balloting, Wuerffel began his campaign having to overcome a tremendous off-season media push for Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning.

Wuerffel settled that question Sept. 21, when he outgunned Manning in Florida’s 35-29 victory over Tennessee in Knoxville. Manning threw four first-half interceptions; Wuerffel tossed four scoring passes in the first 19 minutes.

The only blemish on Wuerffel’s season was Nov. 30, when he threw three first-half interceptions in a 24-21 loss to Florida State.

Wuerffel, 6 feet 2 and 209 pounds, was sacked six times and hit a total of 32 times in the game. He sat in the locker room afterward and answered questions patiently, his body a mass of bruises and welts.

In what would become his most defining moment, he returned a week later to throw for 401 yards and six touchdowns in Florida’s 45-30 victory over Alabama in the SEC title game. That propelled the 11-1 Gators into a Sugar Bowl rematch with Florida State on Jan. 2.

Wuerffel never complained about playing behind an offensive line forced at times to play with three redshirt freshmen because of injuries.

Finding fault with Wuerffel, in fact, might take a sixth-month investigation. Many have tried and come up empty.

The son of an Air Force chaplain, Wuerffel is a deeply religious player and a man of conviction. Last May, he refused an invitation to be named Playboy magazine’s National Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

“I think everyone’s sort of searching for the same thing in life,” Wuerffel said. “A sense of peace, a sense of contentment. I think the problem is most people don’t know where to search.”

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Heisman Trophy at a Glance

WUERFFEL, GAME-BY-GAME

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1996 Opp. Comp. Att. Yds. TD Int. SW Louisiana 15 28 224 1 0 Georgia Southern 15 16 267 2 0 at Tennessee 11 22 155 4 0 Kentucky 21 31 279 3 1 at Arkansas 23 39 462 4 1 LSU 17 25 277 3 1 Auburn 17 30 346 3 1 Georgia 16 23 279 4 1 at Vanderbilt 18 29 283 4 1 South Carolina 11 34 290 2 2 at Florida State 23 48 362 3 3 x-Alabama 20 35 401 6 2 Totals 207 360 3625 39 13

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x-SEC Championship

THE VOTE

Voting for the 1996 Heisman Trophy, with first-, second- and third-place votes and total points (voting on 3-2-1 basis):

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Player 1st 2nd 3rd Total Danny Wuerffel, Florida 300 158 147 1,363 Troy Davis, Iowa St. 209 206 135 1,174 Jake Plummer, Arizona St. 116 113 111 685 Orlando Pace, Ohio St. 87 101 136 599 Warrick Dunn, Florida St. 40 76 69 341 Byron Hanspard, Tex. Tech 15 68 70 251 Darnell Autry, Northwestern 9 19 20 85 Peyton Manning, Tenn. 4 23 23 81 Marcus Harris, Wyoming 7 7 18 53 Beau Morgan, Air Force 3 3 11 26

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