HeismanPundit.com released their weekly straw poll, and the 13 Heisman voters participating still have Alabama running back Mark Ingram well ahead of everybody else. As of this week, Ingram slots ahead of Tim Tebow, Case Keenum, Colt McCoy, Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen is fifth, Kellen Moore sixth, then Golden Tate comes in at seven.
ESPN’s Experts Poll has similar results: Ingram and Tebow at one and two, Clausen up to three, and Golden down at eight. Gene Mendez at SI.com has Ingram atop his rankings, with Nebraska DT Ndamukong Suh an unlikely second, Golden up at third, C.J. Spiller of Clemson at four, Keenum at five, and Clausen at six.
I’ve gone on record as saying these polls are kind of silly to begin with, but the Heisman Pundit poll is a very good predictor of what’s going to happen come the end of the season. And after seeing fairly similar results at the top of these polls, it’s pretty clear that many people will have Mark Ingram on their final ballot. But after crunching some numbers, it’s pretty clear to me that nobody has a clue who should win this trophy right now. The fact that Ingram, a solid back playing for an undefeated team, is the consensus leader for the Heisman Trophy is resounding proof of that fact.
I’ve got nothing against Ingram, who is a very good football player having a very nice year, but he just isn’t a Heisman caliber running back. If you go back to 1994 when Rashaan Salaam won the award, Ingram doesn’t come close to having the stats to match any of the past winners, and would struggle making an argument to even get invited to New York in most other years.
Salaam had a 2,000 yard season (back when bowl games and conference championships didn’t count). Eddie George put up 1900 yards and 24 TDs. Ricky Williams and Ron Dayne put up monster senior seasons while leaving college as the NCAA leader in rushing yards. Reggie Bush will probably end up with more rushing yards than Ingram on a fraction of the carries, and his receiving and return yards made him a far more electric offensive threat than Ingram.
With Ingram the leader in the clubhouse with the season coming down to the final stretch, is he the front-runner for any other reason than default? If we’ve decided that Case Keenum is too much of a system quarterback and the other signal-callers haven’t done enough to move them to the top of the list, and a defensive tackle will never win the award, let’s compare the two prominent skill position players left, Ingram and Golden Tate. Even if you handicap Tate for playing on a team that isn’t as good as undefeated Alabama, how can you give the nod to Ingram if your argument is predicated on their production on the field?
Through eight games, Ingram has run for 1,004 yards on 153 carries for 8 TDs. He’s also caught 19 passes for 186 yards and another 3 TDs. Very nice numbers no doubt. Yet looking at Tate’s numbers, he’s practically matched Ingram’s statistics, and he’s doing it from the wide receiver position. Tate has 56 catches for 927 yards and 9 TDs. He’s also added 155 yards on 19 carries and two TDs. Ingram’s 1,190 yards from scrimmage are only 108 more than Tate’s 1,082, and he’s touched the ball 97 more times from scrimmage than Tate. To put that in basic terms, Tate is averaging 14.4 yards per touch from scrimmage while Ingram is averaging 6.9 yards. That’s quite a staggering difference. Even if you want to look at easy measurables — like 100 yard games — Ingram has four, Tate has five.
Before you go and tout how much tougher yards are to come by in the SEC, take a look at Ingram’s game log. Ingram burst onto the scene with 150 yards on 26 carries against the ACC’s Virginia Tech (who is looking weaker and weaker as the days go by), then played teams like Florida International, North Texas, and Arkansas (FIU and Arkansas held him to under 60 yards each game). It was only against conference bottom-feeders Kentucky, Ole Miss, and .500 South Carolina where Ingram started putting up numbers in the SEC, and only South Carolina has a reputation for being solid defensively.
Meanwhile, Tate’s stats have come against the best teams on his surprisingly difficult schedule. In the Irish’s 35-0 dismantling of Nevada to open the season, Tate had a relatively pedestrian 59 receiving yards, and was held to only 57 yards on five catches against Purdue (though he did rush for 55 yards on 9 carries against the Boilermakers). In the season’s biggest games (Michigan, Michigan St., Washington, USC, and Boston College), Tate has put up his biggest numbers.
The point of all of this isn’t to say that Mark Ingram is a bad running back or unworthy of the praise he’s garnered carrying the Alabama offense. My point is, if people are putting a non-quarterback on top of their Heisman list, how can they pick Ingram over Golden Tate?
The Heisman race is far from over, and both of Notre Dame’s candidates, Golden Tate and Jimmy Clausen, will have the opportunity to play in front of prime-time national audiences to state their case. But as the race stands today, I find it hard to make a convincing argument for Mark Ingram over Golden Tate.
