I know I'm getting to this a little late, but it's been a crazy weekend. I enjoyed watching the Heisman ceremony up until the announcement. It was cool seeing Tebow and McCoy having lunch together. Gerhart's spot giving the campus tour was really cool. How funny was it that Toby's teammates changed the nameplate on his locker to "Tebow/Gerhart?" I could tell that when they interviewed him with Mark Ingram live that he was really nervous, obviously thinking he had a chance to get the trophy. And unlike some opinions here like "I was right, he never had a chance," Toby in fact did have a chance and only a few ballots filled out differently would have given him the Heisman. Some caste whore on ESPN didn't even have Toby in his top 3.
Anyway, when the announcement was about the come my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. The speaker said it was "the closest ever" before giving the name, which confirmed my beliefs that it would come down the wire. Man did I ever feel let down when they said Ingram. To give Ingram credit though, he doesn't seem like the typical thug and seems like a soft-spoken guy himself. He said he likes watching Family Guy and looking at the stars, spotting the Big Dipper in his segment. Two things I enjoy myself.
I was annoyed at the black Heisman winners saying things like "Welcome to the club brotha!" This decade has been good in that the majority of Heisman winners have been white for the first time since the 1960s.
The thing is that Toby truly did have a chance, in spite of all the articles that we posted on this site that said things like "While he won't win, he should." I believe this served as a self-fulfilling prophesy that swayed some of the votes. Remember, everything that we say and do echoes in eternity. Out of the 900 plus voters, maybe some wanted to vote for Gerhart but thought they were "throwing it away" by voting for Gerhart. That proved costly as we saw the razor tight margin.
I'm a true believer in that everything happens for a reason. No means "not-yet." As much as I wanted Toby to win the Heisman just so he would go down in college football history, it does not affect his status for the NFL as we have seen with recent winners like Jason White and Troy Smith. I still want to see a white RB or WR win it though. If Toby was in reach, in spite of nobody even on this site thinking it was possible until late September of this year, then certainly someone else will rise up.
Remember, the original Toby Gerhart thread started 3 years ago only had 4 pages up until the start of this season. Now that has over 20 pages and this one has 9. While some were focused on Gerhart all long since Col. Reb discovered him, it still means he wasn't on many of our minds up until last year, and most of us this year. If that can happen, then certainly some of our underclassmen RBs will shine next year or the year after like Brandon Wegher, Rex Burkhead, and Matt Kaiserman. I don't know about McGuffie who will be a sophomore next season, since he's at Rice, but maybe their team will improve and he'll tear it up. There will also be other guys who maybe haven't been mentioned on this site yet. What if a player recruited as a LB switches to RB because he was inspired by Gerhart? Who knows what the possibilities are. This certainly was a great thing and Toby was within a hair of winning the Heisman, which was beyond ALL of our expectations at the beginning of this season.
Let's stay hopeful that Gerhart will dominate the bowl game and train hard for the NFL. I just hope he doesn't overindulge on too many funnel cakes topped with vanilla ice cream (like he ordered at disney world from the college fb awards show)LOL!