The Heisman Trophy finalists were announced Monday evening, and no one can complain about the three selected. Alabama’s Derrick Henry, Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey, and Clemson’s Deshaun Watson are the three men invited to New York for Saturday night’s ceremony.
Henry had a monster season, by any metric, for the Tide. He set the SEC single-season rushing record with 1,986 yards and scored 23 touchdowns. His 5.9 yards a carry and four games with 200 or more yards, an Alabama school record, are seriously impressive as well. More than that, Henry played his biggest games when the lights were at their brightest. His 200-yard games came at Texas A&M, versus LSU, at Mississippi State, and in the Iron Bowl at Auburn, and he scored at least one touchdown in every single game.
If Henry is the best tailback in college football, McCaffrey is the best… well, he’s pretty good at everything. McCaffrey rushed 1,847 yards, ran for 540, and picked up 1,107 yards in the return game. He also threw two touchdown passes. His 3,496 all-purpose yards broke the FBS record set by Barry Sanders nearly three decades ago.
Watson was the perfect quarterback to pilot Clemson to an undefeated regular season. He threw for 3,512 yards and rushed for 887. His 41 combined touchdowns are a remarkable number, especially considering Watson returned from an ACL injury a year ago.
Having written out the credentials of the finalists, it’s clear that they are the elite players in college football this season. The question becomes should others have been invited to New York? Unlike in years past when the Heisman Trophy presentation was a simple formality, there really is doubt as to who will win this year. Players such as Dalvin Cook, Baker Mayfield, and Keenan Reynolds all had their names bandied about as potential finalists and even winners just a week or two ago, but none of them got the invitation to the Big Apple.
At the end though, the finalists are selected based on who got the most votes and not an arbitrary number. Last year Marcus Mariota won with 2,534 voting points, Melvin Gordon finished second with 1,250, and Amari Cooper finished third with 1,023. All three were finalists. Trevone Boykin finished fourth in voting with 218 points and was not invited. He had no mathematical reason to be there. Sometimes five get the call and sometimes it’s three. Either way, while some fan bases may be rankled, the trio going to New York had exceptional seasons and all warrant getting the call.
