NCAA Football: 25 Heisman Trophy finalists who should have won in hindsight
By John Scimeca
Marshall Faulk currently stands as one of only three NFL running backs to amass at least 10,000 rushing yards and 5,000 receiving yards (besides Marcus Allen and Tiki Barber). He is the only running back to have 12,000 rushing yards and 6,000 receiving yards for his career.
As a pro, Faulk would leave the San Diego State Aztecs and become the only rookie to win the Pro Bowl MVP after the 1994 NFL season. In 1999, as a member of the then-St. Louis Rams, he was a focal point of the famous “Greatest Show on Turf” offense.
He won the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year Award that season and finished his NFL career as the only player to score 70 rushing touchdowns and 30 touchdown receptions. His single-season record for yards from scrimmage (2,429), though this was broken later by Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans.
Faulk compiled 2,174 total yards from scrimmage in 1993, including 644 receiving yards, yet finished fourth in Heisman votes. The year before, in 1992, Faulk was the Heisman runner-up to Miami Hurricanes quarterback Gino Torretta.
In 1993, Faulk finished behind Alabama’s David Palmer, Tennessee’s Heath Shuler and the winner, Florida State quarterback Charlie Ward. Ward threw for more than 3,000 yards that season and won by one of the largest vote margins in history.
However, if we’re looking from today in terms of overall contributions to the game, Faulk takes the cake: Ward would go on to play for nine seasons in the NBA as a unique sport crossover star.
For Faulk’s time at San Diego State, his greatness was largely overlooked because of the Aztecs’ mediocrity. They were 5-5-1 in 1992 and 6-6 in 1993, hardly the billing of a Heisman Trophy winner. Torretta and Ward, however, were both on teams in the national title hunt in December and accordingly received more accolades.