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So far this year’s college football season has seen many surprises. From the outstanding play of Ohio State freshman running back Maurice Clarett, who has helped turn the Buckeye team with a 7-5 record to a possible National Championship contender, to some of the upsets of the year which included Louisville’s overtime shocker against the 4th-ranked Florida State team.
Anytime you talk about college football the same two questions are asked. The first one is, who will win the Heisman Trophy? So far players such as Clarett, University of Florida quarterback Rex Grossman and University of Miami quarterback Ken Dorsey are all front-runners for the award. But the one guy who puts up the numbers, due to the fact that his team plays lower tier opponents, is Marshall quarterback Byron Leftwich.
Leftwich, whose 6-foot 6-inch, 240 pound mold is similar to Minnesota Viking Daunte Culpepper, has led the Thundering Herd to a 2-1 mark this season and, in those three games, he has thrown for 1,215 yards, which includes back-to-back 400 yard passing performances.
One of those games was a loss to Virginia Tech. Unlike Grossman, Clarett and Dorsey, Leftwich is one of the few offensive weapons Marshall needs in order to win. That should help his case but the always famous “strength of schedule” factor will play in.
The second question is, who will win the national championship? According to both the Associated Press and USA Today/ESPN poll, the three teams that could win it are Miami, Oklahoma and Texas. Miami obviously is the team to beat and despite losing half their team to the NFL Draft, it looks like Larry Coker’s team hasn’t missed a beat.
Everyone knows how good Oklahoma is. Bob Stoops, prot�g� and assistant coach under Steve Spurrier at Florida, won the National Championship in 2000 and even without the players he had two years ago, such as Josh Heupel. Quarterback Nate Hybl looks to pick up where Heupel left off and ride the Sooner Schooner into the National Championship game.
Now this leads to a third question, can Chris Simms lead Texas to the big game? Simms, the son of NFL great Phil Simms has been notorious throughout his career for blowing games. One case includes last year’s Big 12 Championship game against Colorado, where Simms dug Texas into a 20-point hole, only to have Major Applewhite come in and luck out at the last moment.
Back to the topic of surprises, the biggest surprise has been the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. Not to say that Notre Dame was bad but looking at their roster, outside of Carlyle Holiday, nobody on the Irish roster could have been considered a factor. Now with Tyrone Willingham at the helm of the Fighting Irish, the possibility of a winning season looks possible. It was the Irish’s 21-17 win against No. 14 Michigan that put them on the national scene as a team to be taken seriously.
In the end these are my picks. Miami will play Texas for the National Championship with Miami winning the game 34-18.
The Heisman award will not be won by Ken Dorsey but by Clarett or Grossman. As much as I like Nebraska, even I will admit that Dorsey was better than Eric Crouch last year. This year Dorsey has a bit more competition with players such as Clarett, Grossman and Leftwich. But between Clarett and Grossman it all depends on how the Buckeyes play out the rest of their season. If they’re able to pull out a win against Michigan, then the possibility of Heisman votes swaying Clarett’s way seems very possible.
