It’s somewhat of a miracle that Manning still had 353 passing yards and 3 touchdowns that game. Manning’s Vols lost in a top-4 showdown in Gainesville, which dropped his record to 0-3 against Florida. The entire college football world knew that Manning had yet to beat Florida going into that game … and they sure as heck knew it after, too. But there were 2 major turning points for the Heisman race. Manning was the preseason favorite because he was returning for a team that finished in the top 10 in 1996 thanks to his banner season. (Steve Spurrier joked that Manning came back because he wanted to become the first SEC quarterback to ever start in 3 consecutive Citrus Bowls.) For voters, it essentially meant that Manning’s margin for error was that much slimmer. For Tennessee fans, the fact that Manning turned down a chance to be an obvious 1st-round pick to come back for his senior year was special. Those players get picked apart and they rarely win the award. Manning entered the 1997 season as the prohibitive Heisman favorite. I’m going to cite quotes in that story several times in this section. If you haven’t, you should totally check out Chris Low’s 2017 oral history on this Heisman race. Let me start with a plug that I used as a resource to break this down. This was and is a debate because accepting the fact that Manning, who was the best player in Tennessee history and was one of the best college quarterbacks ever, didn’t win a Heisman doesn’t sit right then and depending on who you ask, it doesn’t sit right now.
Charles woodson pro#
Both were top-4 picks in the 1998 NFL Draft, both were yearly Pro Bowl invitees, both won a Super Bowl (Manning won 2), both retired in 2015 and both will have a bust in Canton in 2021 when they’re eligible. In a weird way, what Woodson and Manning did on the NFL only solidified the debate. Separated by just 272 points, Woodson edged Manning in one of the closer races we’ve seen in the past 30 years. Two players in completely different regions of the country who excelled doing completely different things made this argument more subjective than others. In some ways, comparing a quarterback to a cornerback is an apples to oranges comparison. Leaf, we’re not talking about this discussion. And that, my friends, was not an easy thing to break down. Woodson and Manning were the headliners who stole the show, but the fact that Randy Moss and Ryan Leaf were part of that group made it an all-time Heisman ceremony (they combined for 29 Pro Bowls and 3 no-doubt Hall of Fame inductees).īut at the time, the debate was Woodson vs. But in terms of star-power, there has never been a Heisman ceremony that star-studded. We had a defensive player against a senior quarterback, which is atypical in itself. The goal of today’s discussion is to understand what and why we got the debate we did, and also perhaps I’ll come to a conclusion of my own.
That’s the kind of debate this was and is. I also get that unless this column is an overwhelming “Peyton should have won the Heisman and it wasn’t even close,” my mentions aren’t going to be pretty. Some people clicked on this link without any intention of having a realistic discussion about this. Do Tennessee fans already have their mind made up about this subject? Does the sun set in the West? Yes and yes.
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