Louisville’s Jackson is youngest to earn honor
Watson finishes second, with Mayfield third
NEW YORK — Lamar Jackson was trying to remember the last time he cried. He was pretty sure it involved losing a football game.
On Saturday night, Louisville’s spectacular sophomore quarterback found out winning can get a guy choked up, too.
Jackson became the first Louisville player to win the Heisman Trophy, beating out preseason favorite Deshaun Watson of Clemson despite some late-season struggles.
Watson, who finished third last season, was a distant second. Baker Mayfield finished third, and Oklahoma teammate and fellow finalist Dede Westbrook was fourth. Michigan’s Jabrill Peppers was fifth.
Jackson, wearing a red velvet blazer with shiny black lapels, said he could feel his heart pounding in his chest right before his name was announced, and he barely held it together while giving his speech with the former Heisman winners standing behind him on stage.
“I almost cried,” Jackson said. “I never get emotional, but to have my name called and see all those great players … ”
Early in the season, Jackson leaped over a loaded field of Heisman contenders that included five of the top seven vote-getters from 2015 to become the front-runner. By the time he slowed down nobody could catch him.
Jackson outdid them all in his first season as Louisville’s full-time starter, accounting for 51 touchdowns and averaging 410 yards per game in total offense.
“He surpassed everything I thought he could do,” Louisville coach Bobby Petrino said.
Jackson won the Heisman going away, with 2,144 points to Watson’s 1,524. By percentage of possible points received, Jackson’s victory was the seventh largest in Heisman history, and he became the youngest winner at 19 years, 337 days, a few days younger than 2013 winner Jameis Winston of Florida State.
Jackson credited his mother, Felicia Jones, and said the trophy will go wherever she decides to put it. Jones raised Jackson as a single mom and would put on football pads to help her son work on his game when he was young. “Everything I do is for my mother,” Jackson said.
Jackson is the first Heisman winner to play on a team that lost its last two games of the regular season since Tim Brown of Notre Dame in 1987. He’s also the first to enter the postseason without a chance to win the national title since Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M in 2012.
No matter. Jackson did so much before November it was difficult to deny him the award because of a couple of missteps at the end.
He provided a signature moment against Syracuse, hurdling a defender on his way into the end zone, and then played his best against Louisville’s toughest competition.
In a romp over Florida State and a close loss at Clemson, Jackson threw for 511 yards, ran for 308 and accounted for eight touchdowns.
By that time, Jackson was a threat to run away with the Heisman, but losses to Houston and Kentucky, when he committed four turnovers, in late November provided an opportunity for others to sway voters.
Watson made the biggest surge but ultimately fell short.