Stanford’s Love is nobody’s Heisman also-ran
As the college football season winds down:
It’s getting a bit annoying to hear Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield labeled a “lock” for the Heisman Trophy with “no compelling challengers,” as one analysis claimed this week. No problem here with Mayfield, the current favorite, but the dismissal of Stanford candidates (Toby Gerhart, Andrew Luck, Christian McCaffrey and now Bryce Love) is really getting old.
Love’s numbers are stunning, including 180 yards rushing per game, 8.96 yards per carry and 10 runs of at least 50 yards. He just piled up 166 yards and three touchdowns on a bum ankle against Washington, the nation’s best defense, to knock the Huskies out of the four-team playoff picture. And he is the very epitome of “student-athlete” with his pre-med studies. All of that shouts “Heisman” by any standard.
Also: It’s true that the inexcusable torrent of night games has limited Stanford’s exposure on the East Coast. So it’s hard to watch those games live after hours. If I had a Heisman vote, I’d make sure I spend the week watching complete game tapes involving all the top candidates. Seriously: Love can’t be that much of a mystery.
This column’s first rule in the playoff discussion: Expand it to eight teams. Only then can it be taken seriously. Four slots for five Power 5 conferences plus Notre Dame, or any other relevant independent? Nope.
Second rule, since we’re stuck with a quartet: Unbeaten Power 5 teams (such as Wisconsin, should the Badgers run the table) qualify automatically. Schedule evaluations should be tossed aside when a team storms through one of these conferences without a loss. Only one team per conference can qualify. And there should be no two-loss teams under any circumstances.
Alabama head coach Nick Saban has campaigned for radical scheduling in the future, in which Power 5 teams play each other exclusively, start to finish. That would be wonderful. In the meantime, check out this ludicrous set of pairings this weekend: Alabama-Mercer, Clemson-The Citadel, Florida-UAB, Florida State-Delaware State, Auburn-Louisiana-Monroe.
Meanwhile, Stanford schedules William & Mary (loved her, couldn’t stand him) in 2020 while Cal lines up a fourgame series with Nevada-Las Vegas beginning in 2020. Cupcake on!
Good news, though, in the Pac-12 schedule released Thursday. No more Saturday road games followed by a Friday night assignment on the road. That brutally unfair setup led to costly losses for USC, Washington State and Washington this year.