Bryce Love finished a distant second behind Baker Mayfield in Heisman voting. In the process, he helped Stanford football set a bittersweet record.
Coming into the 2017 Heisman Trophy presentation ceremony, two schools had finished runner-up in the Heisman voting more than any other institutions around the country. Those two schools both had finalists in the running this year. Bryce Love was in Manhattan representing Stanford, Front-runner Baker Mayfield was in New York from Oklahoma. Defending champion Lamar Jackson of Louisville was also at the Downtown Athletic Club.
As was expected from the Heisman voting this year, Mayfield won the Heisman in a landslide. Jackson finished third in his defense of the trophy, leaving Bryce Love to finish as the runner-up in voting. The defeat left Stanford with the dubious distinction of being the first team to finish runner-up in the Heisman voting for a sixth time.
The loss to Mayfield broke the tie with the Sooners for the school with the most second-place finishes in the Heisman race. On six different occasions, Stanford has finished runner-up for the most coveted individual trophy in college football. Love’s second-place finish this year marks the fifth time in the past decade that a Cardinal player has just missed out on winning the award.
While it is hardly worth boasting, Stanford can lay claim to the bittersweet honor of reaching the second rung of the Heisman ladder more than any other college football team. In the spirit of that milestone, let’s look at the schools that have had multiple runner-up finishes in the Heisman voting since the award was first handed over to Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago back in 1935.
2 runner-up finishes
- SCHOOLS (9): Michigan, Nebraska, Texas, Georgia, Minnesota, Arkansas, Georgia Tech, Tulsa, North Carolina
- MOST HEISMAN WINS: Michigan & Nebraska, 3
- SCHOOLS THAT HAVEN’T WON (4): Arkansas, Georgia Tech, Tulsa, North Carolina
- MOST TOP-3 FINISHES: Michigan, 8
Nine schools have finished second in the Heisman voting on two occasions. Some, like Nebraska and Michigan, can boast multiple winners of the award in addition to their close calls. Both the Cornhuskers and Wolverines have won the Heisman on three occasions.
Right behind them are Georgia and Texas. The Longhorns and Bulldogs have each won a pair of Heisman trophies. But the ones that got away might sting even more, especially the close defeat by Vince Young in 2005 that was avenged by Texas in the BCS national championship game against Reggie Bush and the USC Trojans.
Minnesota, a school with a historical tradition of excellence on the gridiron, does have one Heisman winner to its name to mitigate the pain of coming close on two other occasions. The Golden Gophers have also finished third on three different occasions, though, which accentuates the sting of coming close. Four teams in this group, however, would gladly trade spots with Minnesota.
Arkansas came close in back-to-back years when Darren McFadden finished behind Troy Smith in 2006 and Tim Tebow in 2007. Charlie Justice faced a similar fate at North Carolina, finishing behind SMU’s Doak Walker in 1948 and Notre Dame’s Leon Hart in 1949. Tulsa also finished as runner-up in back-to-back years, with quarterback Jerry Rhome taking second in 1964 and Howard Twilley coming in behind Mike Garrett in 1965.
Georgia Tech has the longest gap of this quartet. Billy Lothridge finishing behind Roger Staubach in 1963 and Joe Hamilton backing up Ron Dayne in 1999.
3 runner-up finishes
- SCHOOLS (4): Army, Pittsburgh, Penn State, Purdue
- MOST HEISMAN WINS: Army, 3
- SCHOOLS THAT HAVEN’T WON (1): Purdue
- MOST TOP-3 FINISHES: Army, 5
Of the four schools that have finished runner-up in Heisman voting on three occasions, Army is both the most successful of the bunch and the least relevant in a modern sense. Largely irrelevant since the 1960s in terms of national contention, the Black Knights haven’t finished top-three in the Heisman race since Pete Dawkins won the school’s last stiffarm trophy in 1958.
After missing out on placing a player in the top three for the past six decades, fans in West Point and around the country would probably gladly settle for a runner-up bid in the near future. That isn’t the case for a place like Penn State, which thought it had a Heisman contender in 2017 with Saquon Barkley. But Barkley finished fourth in the 2017 campaign and wasn’t even invited to Manhattan on Saturday night.
State rival Pitt is another of the four teams that have thrice finished runner-up in the Heisman balloting. The Panthers can boast Tony Dorsett’s win in 1976, but that was now over four decades ago. Since then, defensive lineman Hugh Green in 1980 and receiver Larry Fitzerald in 2003 have each come in second place.
On the outside of the club of Heisman-winning schools is Purdue. The Boilermakers came close throughout the mid-to-late 1960s to landing a winner in West Lafayette. In the span of four seasons from 1966 to 1969, the Boilermakers had somebody in the top three of voting. Steve Spurrier won over Bob Griese in 1966, Leroy Keyes went third and then second in 1967 and 1968 respectively, and Mike Phipps finished behind Oklahoma’s Steve Owens in 1969.
4 runner-up finishes
- SCHOOLS (4): Notre Dame, USC, Iowa, Tennessee
- MOST HEISMAN WINS: Notre Dame & USC, 7
- SCHOOLS THAT HAVEN’T WON (1): Tennessee
- MOST TOP-3 FINISHES: Notre Dame, 18
Here is where you’d expect to find the cream of the crop. Notre Dame and USC have each finished second in the Heisman voting on four occasions. More significant is the fact that the rival Fighting Irish and Trojans each have seven Heisman Trophies (counting Reggie Bush’s since-vacated 2005 award, since voting did occur that season). They are unlikely to think too much about those lost opportunities.
That isn’t necessarily the case for a school like Iowa. The Hawkeyes do boast one Heisman winner, 1939 victor Nile Kinnick. The namesake of Iowa’s home stadium was one of the early beneficiaries of the award’s creation, finishing ahead of Michigan’s Tom Harmon (who won in 1940) and Missouri quarterback Paul Christman.
Iowa has had four close calls since that victory nearly eight decades ago. The most recent was quarterback Brad Banks, who fell 233 points short against USC’s Carson Palmer in the 2002 vote. Chuck Long lost out to Bo Jackson in 1985. In back-to-back years, Alex Karras fell to Texas A&M running back John David Crow in 1957 and Randy Duncan finished behind Army’s Pete Dawkins in 1958.
The odd team out in this group then is Tennessee. Peyton Manning, Heath Shuler, Johnny Majors, and Hank Lauricella all came close to snatching away the hardware for the Volunteers. But a Heisman has never come home to Knoxville and the complex around Neyland Stadium. For a school that has spent the offseason in an identity crisis after being rebuffed in its coaching search, the lack of a Heisman is another blow to the ego.
5 runner-up finishes
- SCHOOLS (1): Oklahoma
- MOST HEISMAN WINS: Oklahoma, 6
- SCHOOLS THAT HAVEN’T WON (0)
- MOST TOP-3 FINISHES: Oklahoma, 16
Had Bryce Love given Stanford its second Heisman Trophy, or Lamar Jackson joined Archie Griffin as the only back-to-back winner of the award, we’d be talking about Oklahoma as the biggest runner-up. Entering the festivities on Saturday night, both the Sooners and the Cardinal had finished in second place on five occasions.
Instead of a sixth runner-up finish, Oklahoma took home its sixth stiffarm trophy. With the first full season putting together a passing efficiency rating over 200 points, Baker Mayfield was a lock to claim the award in 2017. In the process, he avoided the fate of former Sooners stars like Adrian Peterson and Josh Heupel. Others who have come close include Billy Sims, who fell to Charles White in his attempt to repeat as a Heisman winner.
Back in 1954, Kurt Burris was one of the rare offensive linemen to finish second in Heisman voting. Eighteen years later, Greg Pruitt put together a second straight top-three season but couldn’t seal the deal over Nebraska’s Johnny Rodgers. But while they still put together memorable seasons, they would have been more significant with a victory instead of a runner-up ballot in Heisman voting.
In his first season as a head coach, Sooners leader Lincoln Riley can now claim a Heisman winner on his resume. Now Mayfield will try to become the third Heisman winner in the past five years to also play on the national championship team.
6 runner-up finishes
- SCHOOLS (1): Stanford
- MOST HEISMAN WINS: Stanford, 1
- SCHOOLS THAT HAVEN’T WON (0)
- MOST TOP-3 FINISHES: Stanford, 9
And then there was just one. Baker Mayfield was never going to leave Manhattan without the Heisman in his grasp. That left the battle for second place as the biggest question coming into Saturday night’s award ceremony.
Would Louisville get a second straight top-two finish after Lamar Jackson won last year? Or would Stanford pass Oklahoma as the team with more close calls than any other in the history of the Heisman award?
Ultimately it became academic. Bryce Love finished more than 500 points ahead of third-place Jackson, and more than 1000 points behind Mayfield’s winning vote total. While Stanford has won the award once, there is an increasing amount of distance between Jim Plunkett’s 1970 Heisman and the Cardinal players that have just barely failed to join Plunkett as winners from the school.
John Elway finished second behind Herschel Walker of Georgia back in 1982. More than a quarter-century after Elway fell just short, Toby Gerhart narrowly lost the closest Heisman vote in history to Alabama’s Mark Ingram. The final margin of defeat was 28 points in the voting, even though Ingram carried five of six regions.
That set off a three-year run where Stanford finished second in the Heisman race. After Gerhart, quarterback Andrew Luck came up short in both 2010 and 2011. All-purpose back Christian McCaffrey came close in 2015, losing out to an Alabama back just like Gerhart. Derrick Henry finished less than 300 points ahead in another close vote.
Next: 2018 NFL Mock Draft: Complete first round after Week 14
Time time around, Love put in a phenomenal season as McCaffrey’s replacement in the backfield. But Mayfield simply had an otherworldly season in Norman and wasn’t going to be beat.