Do antics affect Heisman votes for Mayfield?
Baker Mayfield will not start his final game on Owen Fieldor be a team captain on his Senior Dayor have the perfect chapter for his storybook career.
It’s a just punishment for what he did on Saturday in Kansas.
But in a couple weeks, he will win the Heisman Trophy.
That, too, is just.
In the days since the Oklahoma quarterback directed a profanity-laced, crotch-grabbing tirade at the Kansas sideline, the college football world has been grappling with the antics. One New York newspaper termed it a tantrum while a national website called Mayfield college football’s biggest heel. Another website countered that Mayfield need not apologize.
In the end, Sooner coach Lincoln Riley felt
punishment necessary, announcing Monday that Mayfield would play but not start against West Virginia. Some will say the sentence was too harsh, others too light, but considering how it will forever soil Mayfield’s memory of his last game in Norman, this carries heft.
While OU decision-makers hope this puts the incident behind them, one more group must still judge Mayfield — voters for postseason awards.
Monday, I sought feedback from more than a dozen Heisman voters. They come from across the country. They cover every power conference. If their opinions carry over to the other 900-plus voters as expected, this is clear: Mayfield will win despite his antics.
“They won’t affect my thought process at all,” said Matt Baker, a voter who covers college football for the Tampa Bay Times. “The ballot criteria is simple: vote for the most outstanding player in college football.”
He’s right; splashed across the top of the online voting site is the phrase, “AWARDED TO THE OUTSTANDING COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYER IN THE UNITED STATES.”
No mention of character. “I’m not going to pretend to know the character of Mayfield or Lamar Jackson or Bryce Love or any other candidates I’ll consider,” Baker said. “So, I ignore it.”
The sports world is often reminded how poorly we know star athletes. Really, we only know of the athletes what they allow us to see, and because of that, it’s best to leave character out of performance-based awards.
“I think if we’re judging the Heisman on kids that haven’t made mistakes,” Riley said, “we’re going to have a hard time finding very many candidates.”
And still, some voters will weigh such things. One veteran football writer on the East Coast considered leaving Mayfield entirely off his Heisman ballot after Saturday. After some thought, the voter concluded Mayfield’s performance and OU’s success made him deserving of a vote.
“I probably won’t give him a first-place vote,” the voter said, “but he’ll be on my ballot somewhere.”
Sure seems like some other voters will do the same, costing Mayfield some points.
Before he grabbed his undercarriage, there was every reason to believe he might challenge the biggest margin of victory in Heisman history. Troy Smith, Charlie Ward and Desmond Howard had roughly four times as many points as the next closest vote-getters in their Heisman-winning years. Mayfield has been so clearly the front-runner for so long that such a landslide seemed possible. Now? Probably not. Voters who dock Mayfield for his antics have that right. They can even point to the mission statement of the Heisman Trust, which oversees the awarding of the trophy. The mission statement speaks with “integrity,” “diligence,” “perseverance” and “hard work.” Integrity actually appears twice in the first paragraph.
But really, the Heisman stopped being a morality play long ago — and I don’t just mean since Jameis Winston won while under investigation for sexual assault.
In 1959, Billy Cannon won the Heisman despite having been given a suspended sentence for theft and being placed on probation a few years prior. The incident involved the LSU star extorting money from men who he’d seen with prostitutes.
Scandalous, especially in the ’50s.
Since then, there have been winners investigated by the NCAA, charged by the authorities and even convicted on felony charges by a court of law.
“Baker’s not in that category,” said one Heisman voter who is a national college football writer. “I’m still going to vote for him because I think he’s the best football player in the country.
“It’s great if there’s someone who isn’t controversial. But that’s not the requirement.”
The voter paused. “This is always about numbers.”
After another knuckleheaded decision on Saturday, Baker Mayfield is lucky that is true.