Heisman voters rank 3 players. For many, that leaves no room on ballot for non-skill-position players such as Texas Tech football's Jacob Rodriguez.
I don't remember what year I first voted for the Heisman Trophy, but I do remember putting Marvin "Shade Tree" Jones on one of those early ballots. That must've been 1992, the year the Florida State linebacker won the Butkus Award and the Lombardi Award. He was a unanimous all-American and The Sporting News college football player of the year.
Jones finished fourth in balloting for the Heisman Trophy, far behind a quarterback and two running backs. He appeared on 179 ballots out of about a thousand.
Texas Tech football linebacker Jacob Rodriguez fared about the same this year. I'm writing this before the awards presentation on Saturday, but the Heisman Trust on Thursday revealed the players who finished fifth through 10th, and Rodriguez got fifth.
Maybe Jones and Rodriguez would have fared better had voters been allowed to cast a ballot with more than three names. That's the format, then and now: Three spots on the ballot. Three points for a first-place vote, two points for a second-place vote, one point for a third-place vote.
I don't know that it would significantly change outcomes, but I've long thought voters should be directed to rank the top five, maybe top seven, for college football's most outstanding player. It stands to reason that an award for the most outstanding player in college football will be a familiar face on one of the best teams. That's the reason why the award leans toward quarterbacks, running backs and receivers. Once those players are accounted for, there's one or no spots for anyone else.
Get out of here with the regional-bias argument. The ballots for media panelists who make up the majority of the electorate are distributed equally — 145 voters in each of six geographic regions of the country.
I also hear and see the phrase "popularity contest" as when one's favorite gets shorted. It's a lazy criticism. Implied in the "popularity contest" complaint is that Heisman voters will always lean to candidates from the most tradition-rich programs. That's certainly not happening when Indiana, Vanderbilt and Texas Tech are supplying three of the five top vote-getters.
It also fails to explain runner-up finishes in recent years from Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty and TCU quarterback Max Duggan. Heck, Cornell running back Ed Marinaro was runner-up to Auburn quarterback Pat Sullivan in 1971, and Holy Cross two-way player Gordie Lockbaum finished fifth in 1986 and third in 1987.
Arguably, no college football player in 2025 has been more popular than Rodriguez, the Texas Tech linebacker who won the Butkus Award, the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, the Lombardi Award and the Bednarik Award. His wife Emma, the U.S. Army helicopter pilot, was ubiquitous on TV broadcasts throughout the conference season.
College football analyst Robert Griffin III spent much of the season running his own personal PR campaign for Rodriguez. Others got on board, too.
FOX had Rodriguez in person on its Big Noon Kickoff show in Cincinnati during the Red Raiders' late-season open date. The panel — including former Heisman winners Matt Leinart, Mark Ingram and Griffin — joined J-Rod in striking the Heisman pose. The same afternoon, a TNT studio crew full of former NFL players interviewed him, Takeo Spikes being particularly complimentary.
It was a Jacob Rodriguez car wash on a November Saturday when the Red Raiders weren't even playing. How often does something like that happen?
And, at least to some extent, it all worked. As we monitored oddsmakers over the final month, Rodriguez moved up the list of Heisman candidates from the consensus ninth choice on Nov. 22 to the consensus seventh on Nov. 27 to consensus sixth on Dec. 5 to finishing fifth.
Brings to mind the old saying: He didn't lose. He just ran out of time.
History suggests, though, this was the most likely outcome.
Since 1970, there have been 28 players finish sixth or higher in Heisman voting who were not quarterbacks, running backs or wide receivers. Of the 28, including Rodriguez this year, 20 finished fourth, fifth or sixth.
Coming from a school that's not a traditional power isn't what decided the issue. Brian Bosworth from Oklahoma, Orlando Pace from Ohio State and Ndamukong Suh from Nebraska got fourth. Ross Browner from Notre Dame, Tyrann Mathieu from LSU and Will Anderson from Alabama were fifth-place finishers. Ohio State linebackers Randy Gradishar, Chris Spielman and A.J. Hawk also finished sixth. So did Miami's Warren Sapp.
Strongly disagree, though, that the Heisman Trust should rebrand college football's top prize as being for quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers only. Sure, it usually works out that way.
But every so often, the stars align so that Charles Woodson or Travis Hunter wins or a John Hicks or a Hugh Green comes close.
It'll happen again, and we don't want to close the door on that opportunity.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Would a change to Heisman voting format have helped Jacob Rodriguez?
Category: General Sports
