Is Chris Lum The New Steve McNair?

There may not be a campaign drumming support for Chris Lum to be extended an invite to the 2011 Heisman Trophy presentation…but perhaps there should be.

SaturdayBlitz.com set forth the road map for an FCS player to earn Heisman consideration, something that has only occurred twice and not since 1994. Steve McNair was the last such nominee, seven years after Holy Cross’s Gordie Lockbaum. McNair may not have had a realistic opportunity to actual bring home the most coveted of all individual honors, but the invitation itself was unparalleled recognition for his accomplishments. Lehigh quarterback Lum is on an historic pace very much similar to McNair’s in 1994 when Sports Illustarted put him on the cover with the headline “Hand Him The Heisman.”

Lehigh easily dispatched a Bucknell team that may prove the last worthy roadblock between the Mountain Hawks and a Patriot League championship/NCAA Playoff berth. Lehigh is a little over halfway through its season, and Lum is the catalyst of its 5-1 start. He’s thrown for 2117 yards, completed 68 percent of his pass attempts and has 23 touchdowns. Should he continue on his current pace, here’s how Lum would compare to McNair in the latter’s Heisman nominated season:

McNair holds a slight edge in scores compared to Lum’s projection based on his 2117 yards on 168-247 and 23 touchdowns. The yardage gap is the most significant edge in McNair’s favor, but Lum has a double-digit advantage in completion percentage. Throwing the number of times McNair did in the Alcorn State offense (530) at the same efficiency level, Lum would be around 4,600 yards through the air.

Compared to his FBS counterparts, only Case Keenum has more yards and no one has as many touchdowns. The closest FBS quarterback to Lum is Robert Griffin III with 19 touchdowns.

The Walter Payton Award is hardly a foregone conclusion for Lum, though it is a far more realistic achievement than a Heisman nomination. Lum’s well ahead of the curve another prolific passer set en route to the 2010 award, Stephen F. Austin’s Jeremy Moses. Moses scored 34 touchdowns and had a hair less than 4000 yards. Lum’s pace would surpass Moses’s touchdown total by Halloween, and at a seven percent higher passing clip.

There is a laundry list of reasons why Lum could not, should not and almost certainly will not be invited to New York. The first is the level of competition against which he is accruing his eye-popping statistics. David Carr finished fifth in the Heisman voting in 2001, despite boasting what were easily the best numbers among the field. This blogger contends Carr was the most deserving of the Heisman, but playing at Fresno State and against WAC competition suffered.

If Carr suffered despite playing Boise State, Wisconsin and Oregon State imagine how loudly voters would scoff at a Patriot League nominee. Lum’s competition is compromised primarily of non-scholarship athletes, in line with Patriot guidelines. The Mountain Hawks will also finish the 2011 regular season with non-conference games against Ivy League members Princeton and Yale, and partial scholarship NEC member Monmouth.

The SWAC competition McNair faced 17 years ago was richer in talent than the Patriot League slate through which Lum navigates.

However, playing in the non-athletic scholarship Patriot League means Lum is himself a non-scholarship player. That in itself makes his play all the more inspiring. At a time when administrators want nothing more than to distance football from the big business aspect that has so dominated recent discussion, who could better embody the “student-athlete” image than a non-scholarship quarterback producing stats at an astronomical rate?

Furthermore, Lum’s production isn’t limited to weekly poundings of Patriot and Ivy League foes. He led the Mountain Hawks to a defeat of Liberty, a top 25 FCS team and winner of eight games the last two seasons. The Flames are the frontrunner to win the Big South Conference with Payton Award nominee Mike Brown captaining the offense. Lum had two touchdowns and 300 yards passing, figures virtually equal to Brown. But where Lum bested his counterpart was on the scoreboard, 27-24.

Lehigh’s other foray against full scholarship competition was an overtime loss to Colonial Athletic Association power New Hampshire. The Wildcats lead the most competitive league in the FCS and appear to be a lock for the playoffs with yet another Payton Award nominee quarterback, Kevin Decker.

Despite the loss, Lum’s individual numbers trumped those of his Payton Award nominee counterpart. He eclipsed 400 yards passing and scored six touchdowns — two helped force overtime. In three games against the CAA a season prior, including a match-up with UNH, Lehigh lost by an average of three touchdowns. Lum’s ascent as a quarterback is an obvious buoy to the entire Mountain Hawk team, understandably so given the quarterback accounts for nearly 24 of Lehigh’s nationally No. 8 37 points per game.

All these numbers add up unequivocally to one special season. Chris Lum might not spend the second Saturday in December at the Heisman Trophy presentation, but he could be busy that day anyway — the awards show coincides with the quarterfinals of the NCAA Playoffs.