The Heisman Trophy is the single most overrated award in all of sports.
That may seem like an odd thing to write the day an Ohio State quarterback is a finalist for it, but it’s true.
Let’s just get a few things out of the way up front:
1) Dwayne Haskins had an amazing season.
2) Haskins has arguably had the single greatest statistical season of any Buckeye in history, regardless of position.
3) He deserves to be part of the discussion for the best player in the nation.
4) It’s great that he got a trip to New York out of this.
Okay, so now everyone gets that this isn’t a knock on Haskins in any way, right?
Okay.
The Heisman is supposed to go “the outstanding college football player in the United States.” It says so right on the front of the award.
Instead, it goes to the quarterback or running back from a top-10 team that has the best combination of stats and narrative hype for that particular season.
There have been rare exceptions in the last 20 years, like Lamar Jackson and Robert Griffin III. They completely broke the stereotype by being the quarterbacks of top-15 teams, not top-10, with the best combination of stats and narrative hype back in 2016 and 2011, respectively. Those were earth-shattering, trend-busting moments, to be sure.
As essentially a position-specific award, the Heisman deserves exactly as much attention as the Ray Guy Award, the Doak Walker Award, the Rimington Award, or any other college football individual honor.
Instead, media outlets dutifully crank out Heisman Watch Lists starting before the season even begins.
While every other positional award gets handed out at one televised college football awards show, the Heisman gets its own prime time TV slot.
Saturday night, ESPN will once again treat “Davey O’Brien Award 2: Electric Boogaloo” as one of the signature moments of the entire sporting calendar.
You’ll probably be tempted to watch to find out if Haskins wins.
But don’t worry – ESPN has already told you he won’t.
On the top of the front page of their website is the headline “Who Will Win The Heisman? Kyler vs. Tua is historic battle.”
Great news: They have now told you Haskins isn’t going to win, so you don’t need to waste your time watching them stretch 8 minutes of content into an hour or more of TV time.
Go do something fun tonight and don’t turn ESPN on at all. pic.twitter.com/k08IKhD0Zo
— Tom Orr (@TomOrr4) December 8, 2018
It’s an odd choice to notify one of the nation’s biggest fanbases in advance that their player has no chance, and is basically there just to fill a seat like Kramer at the Tonys. But here we are.
It’s nice, in a way. This is a hectic time of year. Between Christmas parties, decorating, shopping, wrapping, and a half-dozen other tasks, you could probably use an extra hour to get stuff done.
And lucky you, an hour just freed up in your schedule!
So go do something fun instead. Enjoy a spontaneous date night. Or take your kids to see the lights at the zoo, or just be responsible and get your Christmas cards mailed out.
But don’t feel bad about skipping the Heisman, Buckeye fans.
ESPN has made it quite clear they don’t want you watching.