Bush’s Heisman moment no help for McFadden
News Wednesday that the Heisman Trophy people are restoring Reggie Bush’s 2005 honor evoked immediate reaction, some meaningful and others less so.
Someone posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, of a banner noting the achievements of the 2008 Memphis basketball team, which had its 2007-08 season vacated by the NCAA. Just like that, a 38-2 record became 0-1 for posterity after an investigation of future NBA Rookie of the Year Derrick Rose, best player on coach John Calipari’s team.
No matter the existing furor in Memphis, the NCAA’s response is like that of Robert Duvall to Abe Vigoda in “The Godfather.” Playing Sal Tessio, facing death for betraying Michael Corleone, Vigoda pleads with Tom Hagen (Duvall’s character) to ‘get me off the hook, for old times’ sake.” Hagen shakes his head and says with a faint smile, “Sorry, can’t do it, Sallie.”
Bush’s 2005 deeds came one year before I, at the request of Fayetteville colleague Nate Allen, became a Heisman voter. That gave me a ballot in time to weigh in on Darren McFadden, whose 2006 and 2007 second-place finishes may be the best by a University of Arkansas player until the year 2525 — if man, as Zager and Evans reminded us long ago in song, is still alive.
I voted UA’s No. 5 behind Troy Smith in his sophomore season and ahead of Tim Tebow in his junior year. Smith did not make anyone forget Peyton Manning (also a quarterback) but sparked the offense for an Ohio State team that reached the national final. McFadden closed ground in the stretch like Silky Sullivan for Houston Nutt’s possibly best but least appreciated team, crushed early by USC and losing to LSU, Georgia and Wisconsin (Bret Bielema coached the Badgers, later the Razorbacks) for a 10-4 mark.
But when Tebow edged out McFadden in the 2007 voting, I screamed bloody murder. Neither player set the National Football League aflame, but then again, the Heisman is not meant to be a barometer of professional success but to recognize the most outstanding player in college football.
I’ve seen few greater performances in person than McFadden’s 323-yard effort, setting a Southeastern Conference record, against South Carolina on a November Saturday night in Fayetteville. Losing coach Steve Spurrier, himself a Heisman winner at UF, said “we couldn’t have tackled a Division 3 team.”
The Heisman voters frankly blew it in 1997 by selecting Michigan triple threat Charles Woodson, however worthy, over Manning, of Tennessee. It reeked of a vote against SEC quarterbacks a year after Florida’s Danny Wuerrfel led the balloting. Woodson’s team, like Wuerrfel’s, won the national championship — Michigan’s last until 2023 — and perhaps that helps some Heisman voters sleep easier.
One is a little taken aback by the Heisman Trust’s decision regarding Bush 14 years after he forfeited the award in the wake of significant NCAA sanctions for USC. Those in
cluded receiving improper benefits during a college career that spanned from 2003 to 2005, almost bringing Tommy Trojan three straight national titles.
If nothing else, Wednesday’s decision allows Bush to join past winners in an ongoing series of Heisman House TV ads. (For what it’s worth, Bush at USC, like McFadden at Arkansas, wore No. 5.)
“Personally, I’m thrilled to reunite with my fellow Heisman winners and be a part of the storied legacy of the Heisman Trophy, and I’m honored to return to the Heisman family,” Bush said in a statement to ESPN. “I also look forward to working together with the Heisman Trust to advance the values and mission of the organization.”
USC is linked with the Heisman like Knute Rockne is to Notre Dame and Paul William Bryant with Alabama. Quarterback Caleb Williams, the most recent winner (2023) from the private school in downtown Los Angeles, is expected to go high in the NFL Draft this weekend. Another past Trojan winner, one who became famous through football and infamous off the field, passed away recently, one Orenthal James Simpson.
Bush’s final college game came in what many call the best ever played, the 2005 Rose Bowl. Vince Young, 30 of 40 through the air for 267 yards and running 19 times for 200 and three touchdowns, brought Texas back from 12 points down in the final 6:42 for a 41-38 victory, the Longhorns’ first national championship since Darrell Royal’s 1970 team and fourth overall.
LenDale White was a more effective runner that night than Bush, and it remains a mystery why both were not in the USC huddle when the team was stopped on fourth down and leading by five. (Young took UT 56 yards in 10 plays and 1:50, scoring with 19 seconds on the clock). Then-USC coach Pete Carroll, who saw the need to score 70 points against Arkansas in a 2005 game, went through a dress rehearsal for what awaited him after a Super Bowl years later. He’s the same coach who had Seattle’s Russell Wilson passing on the goal line, New England’s Malcolm Butler intercepting, when the logical play was to hand off to Marshawn Lynch, that night in “beast mode” for the defending champions.
Bush came along too soon for the NIL windfalls now afforded college players, turning amateur athletics into a cattle call. Can anyone imagine what a McFadden might bring on today’s market?