Roaring Rivers

North Carolina State quarterback Philip Rivers is good enough to have won the Heisman Trophy.

Bobby Bowden says so. Norm Chow says so.

He didn’t have a chance.

Rivers -- second in NCAA history in career passing yardage and second in the nation in passing efficiency this season behind Heisman winner Jason White of Oklahoma -- couldn’t even get invited to New York for the ceremony.

That’s because N.C. State lost five games, and these days, losing more than three -- maybe more than two for a quarterback -- might as well be an official disqualification for the Heisman.

Never mind that one of N.C. State’s losses was in triple overtime to Ohio State and another was in double overtime to Florida State. (The others were to Wake Forest, Georgia Tech and on a last-minute field goal to Maryland.)

If N.C. State had made a couple of plays to upset Ohio State and Florida State, Rivers, who passed for 4,016 yards and 29 touchdowns this season, probably would have been sitting onstage at the Yale Club, at least part of the show.

Instead, he finished as an afterthought at seventh, even though Bowden, Florida State’s coach, said Rivers would have gotten his vote, and Chow, USC’s offensive coordinator, considers him on a par with the two Heisman winners and other contenders he has coached.

“No question,” said Chow, who guided 2002 winner Carson Palmer at USC and 1990 winner Ty Detmer at Brigham Young and coached Rivers for one season at N.C. State. “I love the guy. He’s as good as any of them. Mentally strong, a winner. He completed 71% of his passes. Phenomenal.

“That’s the craziest award. How do you determine the best player? Is it the best player on the best team? The best quarterback? The best tackle? I think that award has gotten a little out of hand. Obviously, your team has to do well.”

That isn’t to say White wasn’t deserving, and Rivers -- who takes his team into the Tangerine Bowl against Kansas on Monday in Orlando, Fla. -- is the last to complain.

“To me, team success is most important, and with that come awards and individual accolades,” said Rivers, who has passed for 13,009 yards in his career.

“When you look at this year, Jason White had great numbers, his team lost only one game and they’re playing for the national championship.

“Certainly, it would have been memorable and exciting to go to New York for the ceremony. I’ve never been there. But it turned out late in the race to be a race for the fifth spot, so you wouldn’t have had a chance to win.”

Once upon a time, it was possible to play for a team that wasn’t a national contender and win the Heisman.

Paul Hornung lost eight games at Notre Dame in 1956 and won.

Receivers and running backs occasionally win with four losses -- though no one has since the 1980s when Notre Dame’s Tim Brown, Auburn’s Bo Jackson and South Carolina’s George Rogers did.

The last quarterback to lose more than two and win was Detmer in 1990, who lost three -- two of them after he won.

“It was kind of a crazy deal,” said Chow, a BYU assistant at the time. “They announced the award whatever Saturday it was and we were playing over in Hawaii Saturday night.

“They announced it in the afternoon and I remember him posing for pictures. Everyone was so excited that when it was time for the bus to leave for the stadium, half the guys weren’t on the bus. Hawaii knocked our socks off. Then we went to a bowl game and we lost that too.”

The next question for Rivers is how the NFL will view him. Mel Kiper Jr. recently ranked him the 19th-best prospect, third among quarterbacks, behind Eli Manning of Mississippi and J.P. Losman, the Tulane quarterback who transferred from UCLA.

“I would predict a huge career if someone takes a shot,” said Chow, who is often asked about Rivers by scouts. “The NFL being what it is, some scouts have concern about technique and don’t like the style he has. The knock on him is his throwing motion. It comes from down low and he doesn’t raise his elbow up when he throws it. I say, ‘Don’t worry about that, worry about his ability to win, his ability to make decisions. He’s the son of a coach.’ But I’m a little prejudiced. I love the guy.”

Rivers is mature too. Married to his junior-high sweetheart, Tiffany, he has a daughter who turns 2 in July, and the couple had to handle the disappointment of a miscarriage before the season.

The disappointment of not being in the Heisman mix was something he could manage.

“It’s crazy,” Rivers said. “You see a game, and then after the first week a guy who wasn’t there goes up and another guy is suddenly gone. You know if you’re winning, you probably stay there.”

The close calls against Ohio State and Florida State are over, and only one game remains in his college career.

“Those were huge fun, unbelievably great games that just ended differently from the way we hoped,” Rivers said. “To me, all that does is show the separation between being 7-5 or maybe 10-2, if you look at the Maryland game too.

“There’s that little separation, that little difference. Ohio State won all those games by close margins last season and won the national championship. It just shows how great the game is.”