You know the cast of stiff-armed characters. They’re a familiar lot.
From Luck to Richardson to RGIII to Moore to Barkley to James to even a Honey Badger, the same names have littered the chase for the 2011 Heisman Trophy for most of the season. One name conspicuously absent from all but the periphery of the discussion? Montee Ball.
And that’s a damn shame. Borderline criminal in a sports sense, even.
In a wild and raucously fun Big Ten championship game Saturday night -- I believe Gus Johnson is questionable for his next game with a pulled groin following one of his patented play calls -- Ball provided a microcosm of his splendid and inexplicably under-the-radar 2011 season in one 15-minute, opening-quarter symphony. Playing against the No. 11 team in the country in run defense, Ball rushed for 105 yards in the first quarter -- the third-most Michigan State had given up to one player in a single game all season -- and scored four touchdowns (three rushing, one receiving) for the game as No. 15 Wisconsin claimed both revenge on the No. 11 Spartans with a 42-39 come-from-behind victory and a Big Ten title in the first-ever conference championship game.
“Contain Montee Ball, key to victory,” MSU head coach Mark Dantonio said during an unfortunately prescient moment during the week leading up to the game.
Only three times did the Spartans allow a running back to rush for more than 100 yards in a single game this season; Ball was not contained twice, including the 137 last night that represented the most MSU had given up all year. And that’s just how Ball’s rolled all season long; he rushed for more than 100 yards in nine of UW’s 13 games, and in three of the four there was nary a fourth-quarter carry because of a blowout.
For the season, Ball has rushed for nearly 1,800 yards and totaled more than 2,000 yards rushing and receiving -- Alabama’s Trent Richardson, considered a Heisman frontrunner, is in the neighborhood of 1,600/1,900 in one less game. Ball’s 38 total touchdowns (32 rushing, 6 receiving) are just one shy of Barry Sanders’ 39 in his Heisman-winning 1988 season. In back-to-back last-second/minute heartbreakers, UW’s lone blemishes in a title-winning season, Ball rushed for 200 yards and totaled four touchdowns.
All of that was accomplished playing for a 10-2 champion of one of the top conferences in the country and in the shadow of the most hyped “free-agent pickup” of the offseason -- quarterback Russell Wilson -- for most of the year.
I don’t know if Ball should win the Heisman, but if the totality of his 2011 season doesn’t merit an invite to New York City? Well, it might be time for the Heisman Trust to rethink how it goes about this trophy business.