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December 6, 2021 By: Mark Knudson

How to define Most “Outstanding,” and what’s really the best Heisman Trophy voter criteria?

Some years, choosing which college football player to cast your Heisman Trophy ballot for is an easy call. A player like 2019 winner Joe Burrow of LSU clearly stands out above the rest.

But in other years, the picture is murkier, and voters have to make their selections based on their own interpretation of the stated criteria that’s purposefully left somewhat vague by those in charge.

As voters, we are asked to vote for the “Most Outstanding” player in the country. So I asked the Associate Director of the Heisman Trophy Trust, Tim Henning, how do you define “Outstanding?”

“We leave it pretty wide open,” Henning said on my Knudson and the Commish podcast. “Vote for whom you feel is the most outstanding player in the United States. That can be interpreted in different ways. We have never once gotten involved in and said how you should interpret that. Whether it’s the best player on the best team who has the best stats, or whether it’s someone else with the best stats…there are various ways you can interpret that. We’ve never gotten that granular with it nor do we intend to.”

So left to their own devices – and interpretations – voters cast ballots for what is universally called, “the most prestigious individual award in all of sports” based on their own set of criteria. That makes it possible for many voters to watch as much college football as they can and do a lot of homework before making a decision. Sadly, it also makes it easy to get lazy. Some simply fall back on what they take notice of on the surface, rather than taking a deeper dive into what really makes a player the most outstanding.

In 2015, Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey was easily the “Most Outstanding” player in the United States. But he didn’t play all of his games on national TV nor during prime viewing hours.

Lazy voters didn’t see enough of him.

McCaffrey’s on field accomplishments as a multi-purpose offensive and special teams weapon became historical. And he was incredibly valuable – indispensable, even – to a Stanford team that won the Pac-12 and advanced to the Rose Bowl where McCaffrey put on another “all-purpose” performance for the ages – after the Heisman had already been awarded.

That season a block of voters – mostly those in the eastern part of the country – took the easy way out and selected one-dimensional Alabama running back Derrick Henry as the winner.

It was the default choice, the easy way out. Pick the most notable player on Alabama’s roster and give it to him. Easy.

But here’s where interpretation and voter criteria become so important.

Ask yourself a couple of questions: First, are you sure that Henry was the most outstanding player on his own team in 2015? The Crimson Tide also had players like center Ryan Kelly and linebacker Reggie Ragland (both of whom were selected ahead of Henry in the NFL draft), plus OL Cam Robinson and tight end OJ Howard, were among several All-SEC and All-America selections.

Second, if you removed Henry from Alabama’s roster, do they suddenly slip, and are they no longer a title contender? If the bulk of the carries had gone to Kenyan Drake that season, would Alabama have been any less successful?

Of course not.

Henry – who’s been an outstanding ball carrier in the NFL – was far from being indispensable. What he was, was the best known player on the best team, period. That’s what makes defaulting to an Alabama skill player (which is about to happen for the second straight season) a flawed way to cast an important ballot.

Which brings us to 2021.

It’s pretty clear that after leading the Crimson Tide past top-ranked Georgia to win another SEC title, quarterback Bryce Young will get this year’s award. He’s the easy, I-don’t-have-to-spend-too-much-time-looking-into-this choice for most voters.

Beating Georgia was a big deal. But voters should have also noticed the poor performance the week before that nearly got Alabama upset by .500 Auburn. And the loss to the SEC West’s last place team, Texas A&M, should matter as well.

No one can say definitively that Young is the most outstanding player on the 2021 Alabama football team. So how can he be the most outstanding player in the country?

If we’re being honest, there are probably three dozen college quarterbacks in the country who could have led this Alabama team to the top of the SEC. Among those are Pitt’s Kenny Pickett (who had THE Heisman play in the ACC title game against Wake Forest), Cincinnati’s Desmond Ridder and Ohio State’s CJ Stroud.

Each of them will get Heisman mention, but none had the same supporting cast as Young nor the attention that goes with that. So they won’t win.

Neither will Michigan defensive standout Aidan Hutchinson. He may truly be the most outstanding college football player in the United States, and he may become the top pick in the NFL Draft next spring, but he doesn’t play a marquee position for the most noticed program in the country. And for far too many voters, that’s become the most important criteria of all.

Catch Mark and former WAC, Sun Belt and MAC Commissioner Karl Benson on the “Knudson and the Commish” Podcast available on all major podcast platforms.