Eight men, and all of them can say they were the best.
Eight men, and all of them won the Heisman.
But looking back, who was the most Heismanest of them all?
Consider all the seasons, and all the champions, and all of the great moments of all of the Florida schools. Now throw them in one hopper. Who was the greatest of them all?
Was it Steve Spurrier, the first Heisman winner in the state? Was it Tim Tebow, who won it and had two other top five finishes? Was it Charlie Ward, Danny Wuerffel or Jameis Winston, the three men who also won the national title the year they won their Heisman?
Oh, you can go by draft status – both Winston and Testaverde were taken No. 1 overall, but that isn’t really the point, is it? The point is, it’s a subjective argument, partly about stats, partly about winning and partly about memories.
And here? It says that Winston was the best of them all.
OK, OK. Everyone’s own criteria matters, and if someone wants to say the best of them all was, say, Gino Torretta, who is to argue?
But if you’re weighing statistics, then Winston was the first of the eight players – all quarterbacks, by the way – to throw for more than 40 touchdowns. He was the second, to Chris Weinke, to throw for more than 4,000 yards. That isn’t that unusual; statistics get more impressive for winners every year.
If you’re weighing team goals, however, his team won the national title the year he won it, and it reached the playoffs the next year, when he was sixth. Granted, Winston was surrounded by controversy, but that doesn’t lessen what he did on the field. And, by the way, his 10 interceptions thrown the year he won it were fewer than Wuerffel or Weinke. Also, and again, you can’t rely too heavily on this, but Winston received a higher percentage of the votes than anyone other winner from Florida.
In second place, we have Wuerffel, who threw for 39 touchdowns in leading the Gators to a national title. Wuerffel, who finished third in 1995, led his team past rival FSU for the national title.
In third place? How about Ward, who quarterbacked the Seminoles to an unbeaten season and a national title in 1993? No, Ward didn’t play in the NFL, but remember, it’s a college award. Ward received 83.7 percent of the vote, the highest any Floridian has received.
Fourth place belongs to Steve Spurrier, whose team was unranked when he was a senior with the Gators (the AP ranked only 10 teams that year). But Spurrier had a bit of magic to him as a player, and if you’re being honest, he gets partial credit on Wuerffel’s award for being the head coach. Besides, there is a charm to the long-ago heroes of college football, an innocence that comes in those years before, oh, O.J. Simpson. So what if Spurrier threw for only 16 touchdowns in his Heisman-winning season.
True, Winston played 14 games (Spurrier played only 11, and Testaverde and Toretta played only 12). But he also won 14. His was the only unbeaten team with a Heisman winner on it.
Fifth place belongs to Tebow. Three top five finishes is nothing to sneer at. The trouble was, Tebow won it in the wrong season. The Gators were only the 13th best team in the country when Tebow was a sophomore and lost four games. But familiarity doesn’t always help players win the Heisman; look at Peyton Manning.
In sixth place is Vinny Testaverde. His team finished second in the nation when he was a senior, losing only in an upset to Penn State. The trouble was, Testaverde had a rough night when the Canes lost.
Seventh place? How about Weinke, whose 4,167 yards was the most passing yards in his winning season of anyone. Of course, Weinke’s 431 passes thrown were the most, too. If not for an Orange Bowl loss to Oklahoma, Weinke would rank higher.
And in eighth place? Sorry, but it’s Torretta, who played on the third-best team in the country. The trouble was, there were more talented players than Torretta on his own team. And someone has to bring up the rear.
