Un-News (Heisman Edition)

The only reason I even TALK about this here is because I offer that the way things have slid the last few degrees from "once-highly-respected" to "over-wrought-media-show" for the Heisman is pretty well what these short-sighted fools have in store for the "National Championship" process if continued to be given free reign:
"Short Memory Hype Circus"
There is another, more immediate effect we will likely see, in the event, artificial, but a KIND of "entertainment", undoubtedly (I'D watch). Goes like this:
Tua is denied the Heisman "EVERYONE" had him "way out in front" for since practically the first week of the season (the folks who build 'em up are the same folks who VOTE 'em in or out!), support that (rightfully) only deepened and intensified throughout the ongoing season until the very last game, the SEC Championship Game no less, when his mounting "minor injuries" without rest or respite finally drove him off the field (and on an important side note, one could argue that his own stubborn and ruthless Coach, Nick Saban threw him to the wolves, then threw him away in order to maintain a certain image of HIMSELF...Just as he more or less threw away the talented, loyal young man Tua replaced a year earlier, again with seeming ZERO consideration of the men themselves, mentally/emotionally in Hurts' case, physical well-being in Tua's, in BOTH cases seemingly with nary a thought of either man's past loyalty and immense contribution OR potential FUTURES)...Thanks to Saban's selfish mishandling of Tua's mounting loss of peak skills, Tua finally HAD to be sat down in THE KEY GAME...SABAN "gets away with it" thanks to the near-forgotten Hurts' return in fine form, and now Tua pays the price: The "Short Term Memory" Guys who get to create, talk about, then VOTE on this "Artificial News Event"--a sort of "tradition gone awry in a throw-away world"--go directly from "Tua hands down" for MONTHS then turns immediately to "No 'Heisman Moment'..." and a lot of other fresh drivel presented as part of some hallowed process that now dismisses the kid who dazzled until he couldn't hide the damage that was clearly limiting his prodigious talent.
So: In handing the (by now, in my opinion, compromised-by-politics and crass ratings-grabbing) award to "the other guy" (and I am pretty damn sure that WILL happen now--you have only to LISTEN to the yapping fools on TV who are the very ones who VOTE on it), they light a fire under Tua and his offense--who go out and lay a big number on that peewee-quality Oklahoma/TeenyWeeny12 defense, Saban gets HIS way and the dumbasses get to WRITE/COVER it all any way they like.
My cut-to-the chase advice, as an admittedly indirect result:
BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT GIVING THESE FOOLS ANY SAY in future consideration of "playoff expansion" and/or the whole discussion of how a "NATIONAL CHAMPION" is to be determined at this level of major college football.
The clowns are trying to run the circus.

Surprised Will Grier wasn't a finalist though West Virginia faded in the end.

Leakfan12 said:

Surprised Will Grier wasn't a finalist though West Virginia faded in the end.

Click to expand...

(Now that you mention it, Lf...)
Clearly:
"last performance" + mythical "Heisman Moment" = Award Consideration now in this Short Term Memory World these make-it-up-as-we-go-along folks are trying to forcefeed the rest of us.
They no longer even have to bother explaining their reversals; apparently they can just drop any further mention of former (as in "a coupla weeks ago") build-ups--and "everyone that matters" will just go along.

Will Grier was my favorite throughout the season. He had 1-1/2 really bad games to eliminate himself from the running. Tua Tagovailoa had 1 really bad game. I guess the Heisman committee invited the best three, even if I do not agree with the selection. If the three they invited, I do not care who wins. My prediction is Kyler Murray.

The guys voting are all over "the media" they in fact EMBODY, "tipping their hand"--in my view like politicians working the crowd, making the actual "decision" somewhat anticlimactic. For whatever reasons, they sacrifice drama in favor of supposed consensus.
Maybe it is thought this helps to hype the game, heighten the emotional stake in the actual confrontation? It all seems transparently artificial to me. And by now a different sort of process altogether from the way this "bound-in-tradition" version of a "Most Valuable Player" award was unique. All but QBs seemed already practically eliminated from serious consideration; now "body of work" and consistency is being devalued in favor of "latest impression", "last big play" ("Heisman Moment"), and the context of the candidate's TEAM'S success...I do not foresee a Paul Hornung, on a Notre Dame team with a LOSING record that year but who did EVERYTHING (throw, run, even KICK!) to make and keep that team IN virtually every game, ever again being even INVITED TO NYC by that Downtown Athletic Club for the proceedings, let alone WINNING it.

OK: I probably shouldn't even go DOWN the road I am bout to, but assuming I don't smarten up and delete it when I'm done, I apologize in advance--and ask that y'all indulge me maybe ONE OVER-THE-TOP RANT PER YEAR?
I've said my piece, am pretty well DONE with it--except then I see today's latest "College Football Live", and here are these a-holes just LYING LOUDLY TO OUR FACES!
Here are the very guys who raved all season about how crazy good Tua was. "running away with the Heisman", and now here they are BEGINNING the "final discussion" claiming right up top now that "Tua and Tyler were neck and neck all season, with Murray slightly ahead game by game..." (BULLSHIT! These cowards were mouthing what was at the time "the party line" each week, over and over that it was "Tua's to lose...")...and then suddenly it's "Tua had a bad game when it really counted, and Tyler just iced it with HIS game against Texas"--not what happened, but then they all go on with their continued redefining of all that "REALLY happened" and what the award's criteria "REALLY is", in what is an extreme case of "experts" STARTING with a desired, convenient conclusion and working backwards across the equation to fill in the reasons that make it come out that way. May seem "comfortable", but no "truth" is discovered, and everything that comes after is on soft ground, a house of cards at BEST.
You see this nowadays in discussions concerning "social engineering" all the time--making THOSE conclusions worthless, even an intentional veil of lies (a classic example: Marxism)...If SCIENTISTS indulge in this sort of wrong-way reasoning (and we see it there of late too), their work is useless towards any true progress (except possibly in the old days their careers testifying in support of Big Tobacco, nowadays for corporations wiggling outta financial responsiblity for toxic spills, or against all the inconvenient talk about "Global Warming")...Sorry, but that's just how it IS.
I don't really CARE who wins the Heisman if there ain't a Gator in the final group, but DAMN! I hate being lied to, seeing such a naked effort at mass manipulation by pretty well the same people who frame the discussions that will eventually determine the most important decisions down the road concerning the path of College Football, then are the very ones who proceed to DISCUSS and INFLUENCE those decisions: I just think we need to call 'em OUT on this sort of insincere and transparent shilling for various behind-the-scenes powers-that-be--who btw invariably underneath it all can be found to have been buttering the sides of the bread that sustains the talkers all along.
This ain't coincidence. It is a widespread flaw in our whole "system of systems": Its most egregious (and dangerous) manifestation is in PACs...
But lets face it: It's pretty well a done deal--and NOT for pursuing HERE, talking COLLEGE FOOTBALL, our preferred "Last Refuge" from the intransigent problems and deepening hypocracy of "The Real World" and its seeming headlong rush AWAY from reason, order and thoughtful decency.
So I throw a flag! On an endless parade of thoughtless media jerks, for "failure to use reason or intellect", 15 MINUTES of airtime lost, AND we go upstairs to the replay booth to have actual "THINKING INDIVIDUALS" consider "TARGETING", in this case on said media personages for "the obliteration of truth"... If confirmed, each guilty party is to have their presence negated from further discussion of the topic in which the foul occurred.
Wow. Wouldn't that be great? It doesn't even have to be ME that GETS that responsibility: I'll live with it being judged by one of the few more independent, contrarian media people out there; How bout Paul Finebaum? (Lol) Hey, I think I'm really ON to something here.
Either that, or I have snapped. Frustration fueled crazies--gone off the deep end entirely. (Primal SCREAM time again: "YAUGH!!!")
OK. I really AM done now.

The ESPN College Gameday guys are my least favorite. They have to be the way they are in order to get ratings, which are dwindling. Even the SEC Nation, ESPNU, and other sports media outlets reference how outlandish ESPN College Gameday gets from time to time (even though they are the same parent company at times).

That being said, even a casual observer would notice that early in the season Tua Tagovailoa was doing so well that he was at one point holding a 36:2 touchdown to interception ratio. Will Grier was 1,000 yards and a couple touchdowns ahead of his peers until two bad games derailed his Heisman campaign. Kyler Murray was right there in the discussion all year long, but just outside the first or second position. Dwayne Haskins in my opinion fell out of the running with the loss to unranked Purdue. Haskins is only slightly ahead of Grier, with only Tagovailoa and Murray truly being Heisman worthy. They need to have three candidates at the ceremony, so Haskins gets the nod.

Fan forums will say that there were other candidates in the running, but realistically there were four this year. Tagovailoa is an underclassman, but he did not rise above the upperclassmen Heisman candidates this year -- specifically on his biggest stage, the SEC championship game. Grier stumbled in two games, and did not have the opportunity to redeem himself in a conference championship game, so he dropped out with the loss to Texas. That leaves us with Haskins who is just filler, and Murray, who is the best story for the Heisman committee.

Note that Murray, Tagovailoa, and Haskins accrued these stats over 13 games. Grier had one game cancelled due to hurricane, and he did not get a championship game, so he only has 11 games this season.

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/ESPNStatsInfo/status/1071589156621557760?s=19
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Honestly, I thought it would have been Tua's. Congrats to Kyler and wondering what he'll do after the season.

Honestly one could justify giving the Heisman to any of these three depending on selection criteria. Pick any two and compare passer rating, QBR, total touchdowns, total yards, total interceptions, or YPA and you wind up comparing game performance. Each of them had a bad game. Each one is likable. I think it became a comparison in losing games, which eliminated Haskins. Between Tagovailoa and Murray it became a comparison of narratives. Murray avenged his loss, had a record setting season, and could choose between Major League Baseball or the National Football League in a few weeks.

Escambia94 said:

The ESPN College Gameday guys are my least favorite. They have to be the way they are in order to get ratings, which are dwindling. Even the SEC Nation, ESPNU, and other sports media outlets reference how outlandish ESPN College Gameday gets from time to time (even though they are the same parent company at times).
That being said, even a casual observer would notice that early in the season Tua Tagovailoa was doing so well that he was at one point holding a 36:2 touchdown to interception ratio. Will Grier was 1,000 yards and a couple touchdowns ahead of his peers until two bad games derailed his Heisman campaign. Kyler Murray was right there in the discussion all year long, but just outside the first or second position. Dwayne Haskins in my opinion fell out of the running with the loss to unranked Purdue. Haskins is only slightly ahead of Grier, with only Tagovailoa and Murray truly being Heisman worthy. They need to have three candidates at the ceremony, so Haskins gets the nod.

Fan forums will say that there were other candidates in the running, but realistically there were four this year. Tagovailoa is an underclassman, but he did not rise above the upperclassmen Heisman candidates this year -- specifically on his biggest stage, the SEC championship game. Grier stumbled in two games, and did not have the opportunity to redeem himself in a conference championship game, so he dropped out with the loss to Texas. That leaves us with Haskins who is just filler, and Murray, who is the best story for the Heisman committee.

Click to expand...

OK... THAT rationale, explained just that way, I can live with, even agree--to the degree that I even care about the decision to begin with.
That still doesn't negate the whole phony backfill process and simultaneous rewriting of (what I grant merely amounts to a minor footnote to) history that has ensued. Again: I am SO tired of this sort of thing...
And now, come the actual day and event, it is, at least to ME "...blah blah blah yeah yeah yeah BIG surprise..."
Why not just give the OTHER two little brass statuette "Thankyou For Your Participating"-Awards with similar fanfare, one more piece of the Mediocritization of America movement?