Heisman Race Coming Down to Florida's Tebow, Alabama's Ingram

We're at the midpoint of the 2009 college football season, and the race for number one seems to include players from Alabama and Florida.

Not the race to see who the No. 1 team is, although that includes the Gators and Crimson Tide, too. No, unless something catastrophic happens to one of them, they will decide that on the field during the SEC championship game.

The other race for No. 1 is the race Heisman Trophy race, which seems to be coming down to Tim Tebow, quarterback of the Florida Gators, and Mark Ingram, running back for the Crimson Tide.

At the beginning of the season, all of the talk on the Heisman Trophy centered around quarterbacks Tebow and Oklahoma's Sam Bradford, both of whom were looking to win the top college personal award for the second time, and Texas Longhorn Colt McCoy.

However, Bradford, last year's winner, appears to be out for the season and his team has losses to Texas, Miami, Fla., and Brigham Young, but at least they are all ranked teams. McCoy has struggled all season, but can take consolation in the fact his team will be in the national title game if his Longhorns win out. Of course, they should have been in it last year, but that's another discussion.

That leaves Tebow from the preseason favorites, but he hasn't exactly been spectacular this season, either, though his Gators are undefeated and in the national title hunt. He did lead his team to a last second victory of the Arkansas Razorbacks, coming through in the clutch.

The main knock against Tebow this year is he hasn't had the supporting cast of talented wide receivers around him as in past years and he has had to do more than before. To me, that's more of an argument that maybe he shouldn't have won it in 2007. In fact, a stats comparison shows that Tebow is far behind his 2007 season and likely will finish that way, and the Gators have not had a terribly difficult schedule to this point. Tebow threw for 3,200 yards and 32 touchdowns the year he won the Heisman. With this year's stats to date, Tebow is projected to throw for just over 2,000 yards and 16 touchdowns. His two biggest passing days came last week against the Razorback, and against the Troy Trojans in the second week of the season, when he threw four touchdowns. He's also been sacked much more this year than the past, making it difficult to complete passes.

Of course, a big part of Tebow's game is running the football also, but this year he has cracked the 100-yard mark once, against the Kentucky Wildcats, and has not scored a rushing touchdown for two games in a row.

Meanwhile, receiving no preseason hype but now making everybody stand up and take notice is Ingram. A sophomore, Ingram has rushed for 900 yards to date and is on pace to run for 1,500 yards. He has 11 touchdowns already, including three receiving. Most of his biggest rushing games have come in the Tide's more important games, including 246 yards and a touchdown last week against #20 South Carolina and 150 yards and two touchdowns, one receiving, the first week against the Virginia Tech Hokies, who are currently ranked 15.

On the downside, Ingram ran for only 50 yards and a touchdown against Arkansas, but his team won 35-7.

Making strides, but having a long way to go, is Notre Dame quarterback Jimmie Clausen. However, his may be a case of too little too late.

If voting were to end today, Tebow would win, even though it looks like Ingram may deserve it more. However, Tebow is a senior, has done what he has had to in order to keep his team in the national title hunt, while Ingram is a sophomore and voters likely will figure he'll get another shot next year.

Sources:

http://espn.go.com/ncf/player/profile?playerId=183484

http://espn.go.com/ncf/player/profile?playerId=379061

http://espn.go.com/college-football/heisman09/index