Heisman Hype Can Have Its Cruel Side

We can’t wait for No. 1 Miami versus No. 6 Florida this Saturday in Gainesville if only because the game pits quarterback Rex Grossman against quarterback Ken Dorsey in the season’s first Heisman Trophy elimination match.

Of course, no one asked Grossman or Dorsey if either wanted to be a Heisman candidate, but what say do they have in this matter?

The Heisman is college football’s Academy Award, the kind of pinnacle prize that would lead Notre Dame to convince Joe Theismann to change the pronunciation of his name to rhyme with Heisman (it didn’t work; Theismann finished second to Jim Plunkett in 1970).

So, who wouldn’t want to be touted for the Heisman?

More players than you would think.

Archie Manning already has informed Mississippi not to promote his talented quarterback son, Eli, for the award, partly because of the pressure and backlash that came with son Peyton Manning’s heartbreaking 1997 Heisman loss to Michigan’s Charles Woodson.

“After talking with Archie, we took the position that we would not use the ‘H’ word around Ole Miss,” Mississippi media director Langston Rogers said this week.

Heisman campaigns can be disasters. Last year, Oregon State pushed running back Ken Simonton onto the Heisman stage to counter Oregon’s drive with quarterback Joey Harrington.

Harrington thrived under the spotlight, led Oregon to a No. 2 national ranking, finished fourth in balloting, and became the third pick in the NFL draft, signing a $36-million deal with Detroit.

Simonton had a sub-par year, was not drafted, and was last seen back home in Pittsburg, Calif.

Nevada Las Vegas quarterback Jason Thomas still hasn’t recovered from last year’s decision to promote him for the Heisman.

Thomas was coming off a stellar sophomore season and UNLV was looking to use the player to gain some national publicity.

“We were trying to sell tickets,” John Robinson, the team’s coach and athletic director, admitted recently. “We never had a player anyone paid attention to since Randall Cunningham, and I don’t know how much attention they paid to him.”

UNLV forged ahead with Heisman campaign 2001 even though Thomas was coming off surgery on his throwing shoulder.

“I just kind of went along with the program,” Thomas said. “I was not comfortable with it. There were times when I even said, ‘I don’t look at myself as a Heisman candidate.’ ”

Thomas felt pressure to carry his team and was a complete flop in the team’s opener at Arkansas, a game UNLV would have won if not for its quarterback’s poor play.

Thomas couldn’t grip the ball on a humid night, completing only four of 13 pass attempts for 40 yards with three interceptions.

“It was torture,” he said of the game. “I remember going to the locker room and falling on the floor. I was just apologizing to everybody, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I blew it, I’m sorry.’ I shouldn’t have felt like that. No one player loses the game. That should have been a sign right there I put too much pressure on myself.”

Not the best way to kick off a Heisman campaign.

“Every time I’d go to a stadium, that’s all fans were talking about,” Thomas said. “They’d say, ‘You’re no Heisman.’ It’s tough on you physically and mentally. Every team wants to hit you and hit you hard and knock you out of the Heisman race.”

In leading UNLV to an 8-5 record in 2000, Thomas completed 52.7% of his passes for 1,708 yards, with 14 touchdowns and nine interceptions. Last year, the junior Thomas had more interceptions than touchdown passes, 12 to eight, and his completion percentage fell to 42.8%. Worse, UNLV fell to 4-7.

Thomas had a lot of additional responsibilities to handle, including the impending birth of a daughter.

“I had a big slice of humble pie last year,” Thomas said. “Pressure from the media, pressure from my family, pressure from myself. So many things were coming to a head at one time. It was like a nightmare.”

Robinson says Thomas probably let the Heisman talk go to his head.

“I think he’d grown up with this ‘I’m a superstar’ thing and it causes you to take some things for granted about playing the game,” Robinson said.

Thomas originally signed to play at USC out of high school before transferring to UNLV. Life was good last year when the school plastered Thomas’ picture on a Las Vegas Strip billboard; not so good when they painted over his face.

“You’ve got to take the going up and you got to take the coming down,” he said of the street-side process.

The last thing Thomas wants to see around town is a picture of himself next to Wayne Newton’s.

“No billboards,” Thomas said. “We want team billboards. I think that was one of the things that separated us from the team. It was one guy put there on the pedestal. No matter what you say it affects you in the locker room. Guys treated me differently and I might have treated guys differently.’

Footnote: Thomas isn’t quite out of his funk yet.

In last weekend’s 27-7, season-opening loss to Wisconsin, Thomas had two interceptions and two fumbles.

UNLV has lowered expectations this year, although Thomas is being promoted for the Davey O’Brien Award, given to the nation’s top quarterback.

Hurry-Up Offense

It’s only natural Grossman and Dorsey are getting most of the attention heading into Saturday’s Florida-Miami showdown. Grossman finished second to Eric Crouch in last year’s Heisman balloting and Dorsey finished third.

“It’s just another thing to talk about in a huge game,” Grossman said. “Obviously, we don’t go head to head.”

Miami brings a 23-game winning streak into the game, and Dorsey is 27-1 as a starter. Florida’s “Swamp” is arguably the loudest backdrop in college football, but don’t expect Miami to be intimidated by the crowd. “We’ve been to Penn State, we’ve been to Florida State,” linebacker Jonathan Vilma said this week. “Those are some rowdy places.” In fact, Miami won games at Penn State and at Florida State last year by the combined score of 82-36.

It’s lonely at the top: Four of last year’s six major conference champions already have lost games: Colorado (Big 12), Illinois (Big Ten), Maryland (Atlantic Coast) and Louisiana State (Southeastern).

Two-minute drill assessment of USC’s 24-17 victory over Auburn: If quarterback Carson Palmer can avoid costly mistakes, and the offensive line holds up, and tailback Justin Fargas can return from a hamstring injury to add some pop to the running game, and Troy Polamalu can pick it up a notch at safety, and the Trojans can eliminate dumb penalties, and the team can survive a nonconference schedule that still includes games against Colorado, Kansas State and Notre Dame, and USC can navigate through a tough Pac-10, this has the makings of a special year.

After the Auburn game, USC offensive coordinator Norm Chow had this to say about Palmer, the Trojans’ fifth-year senior quarterback: “He’s been very unfairly criticized. Every year he’s had a new system and a new coach. He’s finally got the same deal two years in a row.” Chow is in his second year as Trojan coordinator after a distinguished career calling plays at pass-happy Brigham Young. Chow thinks this could be a breakout year for Palmer. “You know, Steve Young sat on the bench for three years,” Chow said of the former BYU and NFL star quarterback.

Hammer time: Two teams you wouldn’t want to be this week? How about the states, San Diego and San Jose. San Diego State plays at Colorado while San Jose State travels to Washington. Colorado and Washington are coming off stinging losses on opening weekend and are no doubt looking to release their anger.

San Diego State, under first-year Coach Tom Craft, blew a chance to beat Fresno State on Aug. 31 when a last-second field-goal attempt was blocked. You wonder how many chances the Aztecs are going to get. They play 13 games this year, eight on the road, with only 70 players on scholarship. “That isn’t the ingredients of having the chance to get off to a good start,” Craft said.

San Jose State won its opener at Arkansas State, but this week’s game at Washington will mark the second of 13 games in 13 weeks.

San Jose State is playing for more than pride. The Spartans’ Division I-A status is in jeopardy. Under a new NCAA edict, the football team has to average 15,000 fans a home game in 2004 to remain Division I-A in football. Last year, the Spartans averaged 10,207 a game.

More on San Jose State: Neil Parry has cleared a major hurdle in his bid to return to the field two years after an on-field injury required the amputation of his right leg below the knee. The problem involved the NCAA’s catastrophic insurance policy with Mutual of Omaha. Under the terms, Parry would have lost future benefits had he been cleared to play. Mutual of Omaha, though, recently modified its policy for Parry.

Parry has been fitted with a prosthetic but has not yet participated in contact drills or been cleared to play by San Jose State. Parry probably would make an appearance on the Spartan kickoff team. A school spokesman said Parry would not play this week. One possible return date might be Sept. 28 at home against Texas El Paso, the school against which Parry sustained his injury two years ago.

This week’s stinker matchup: Buffalo vs. Rutgers. The loser ought to be demoted to Division I-AA considering both “major” college programs lost last week to Division I-AA schools. Buffalo went over the falls against Lehigh and Villanova defeated Rutgers.

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THE TIMES’ RANKINGS

CHRIS DUFRESNE’S FOOTBALL RANKINGS, COMMENTS:

*--* Rank School (Rec.) Comment 1 OKLAHOMA (1-0) Rankman chalks up sloppy first game to having to be in Tulsa 2 TEXAS (1-0) Troubleshooter trying to find why running game went south vs. North Texas 3 FLORIDA ST. (2-0) Hey look: former girls college plays Virginia, Maryland in consecutive weeks 4 MIAMI (1-0) Heisman hype continues with Dorsey-Grossman facing off in finger football 5 TENNESSEE (1-0) Experts predict Vols will march down the middle of Middle Tennessee 6 FLORIDA (1-0) Nice to see Gators can still hang “half-a-hundred” on an early opponent 7 NEBRASKA (2-0) Getting outgained by Troy St. is like getting out-sung by Roseanne 8 WASHINGTON ST. (1-0) Major networks praying they won’t have to send 18-wheelers to Pullman 9 VIRGINIA TECH (2-0) Rankman just stopped by the Hokies’ booth and took a flier 10 GEORGIA (1-0) Guinness coming next week to verify LB Boss Bailey’s 46-inch vertical leap 11 MICHIGAN (1-0) State AP voters may revoke 1997 title over school’s $20 media parking charge 12 WASHINGTON (0-1) Ranking reflects number of players team often deploys on defense 13 COLORADO ST. (2-0) This week’s opposing coach tells players to get their football affairs in order 14 OHIO ST. (1-0) UCLA said to be “very” interested in Buckeye player accused of theft 15 OREGON (1-0) School looks to rent ad space on the back of an up-and-coming welterweight 16 USC (1-0) Tommy Trojan emerges from hole, sees shadow; Means 10 more weeks of glory 17 MICHIGAN ST. (1-0) Wednesday: received team’s media guide. Thursday: received hernia 18 COLORADO (0-1) What a coincidence: Missed out on No. 16 in poll by 0.05 of BCS point 19 MARSHALL (1-0) Dog track to go dark for Sept. 12 showdown against Virginia Tech 20 SOUTH CAROLINA (1-0) Holtz sends new Notre Dame coach loaf of date bread and fruitcake 21 WISCONSIN (2-0) Sorry, this week’s comment cut short by power outage 22 NOTRE DAME (1-0) Outlined against a blue-gray August sky somewhere in New Jersey 23 PENN ST. (1-0) Close wins over UCF not acceptable unless Culpepper is UCF quarterback 24 N.C. STATE (2-0) Rankman still breaking down tapes of East Tennessee St 25 AIR FORCE (1-0) Northwestern journalism grads recon-vene to burn Rose Bowl “team” photo

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