Heisman Trophy Winners Encompass a Wide Array of Players

They can be Super Bowl heroes like Roger Staubach and Marcus Allen or college champions like Tony Dorsett and Carson Palmer.

Heisman Trophy winners run the gambit from superstar to superbust and everything in between.

The first Heisman Trophy award was won by Chicago University's Jay Berwanger back in 1935. Since then, 71 other players have won the prestigious award, which is given to the most outstanding collegiate football player in the country. The award is named after football coach and innovator John W. Heisman.

Playing on a team in the national championship hunt is usually a prerequisite for the award. Only one Heisman Trophy winner - Notre Dame quarterback Paul Hornung the 1956 winner - played for a losing team. The Irish finished 2-8 that season, but Hornung still picked up the award, edging Tennessee's Johnny Majors.

Aside from Hornung, most Heisman winners played for winning teams. That trend has held true through the years.

The last three Heisman Trophy winners - Ohio State's Troy Smith (2006), USC's Reggie Bush (2005) and USC's Matt Leinert (2004) - played in the BCS National Championship game. All three put up impressive statistics in their Heisman Trophy Award seasons as well.

Thought it's recognized as the top collegiate award, the Heisman Trophy doesn't necessarily mean success at the next level. Several winners have gone on to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but for every O.J. Simpson and Barry Sanders, there are after-thoughts like Gino Torretta and Rashaan Salaam.

Torretta, the 1992 winner from Miami, didn't last two seasons in the NFL and 1994 winner Salaam out of Colorado, was a bust with the Chicago Bears and eventually ended up playing second-fiddle in the now-defunct XFL.

Charlie Ward, the 1993 Heisman winner from Florida State, didn't even play in the NFL, but instead chose a career in the NBA, where he played point guard for 13 seasons.

A few Heisman Trophy winners picked up the hardware on prodigious numbers alone. Both Houston quarterback Andre Ware (the 1989 winner) and BYU quarterback Ty Detmer (the 1990 winner) had record-setting seasons throwing the ball en route to their Heisman Trophy seasons. Ware averaged 424 passing yards a game while Detmer passed for 351 yards a game. Unlike most other Heisman winners, neither Ware's Houston team or Detmer's BYU squad was in the national hunt.

Since 1990, only one Heisman Trophy winner was on a team that didn't finish in the top 10 - Ricky Williams' Texas team finished 18th in 1998, the same year he won the Heisman Trophy.

Seniority also has a hand in the award. No freshman or sophomore has ever won the Heisman Trophy. Recently, two underclassmen have come close. Oklahoma freshman Adrian Peterson finished second to USC's Matt Leinert in 2004 and Arkansas sophomore Darren McFadden was second to Ohio State's Troy Smith in 2006.

Tidbits

• Six of the last seven Heisman Trophy winners have been quarterbacks. In all, 40 running backs have won the award along with 24 quarterbacks.

• Three schools, Notre Dame, Ohio State and USC, each have had seven Heisman Trophy winners. Oklahoma had had four winners while Army, Michigan and Nebraska have had three.

• Nineteen Heisman Trophy winners have been the No. 1 selection in the NFL draft. USC's Carson Palmer was the most recent in 2002 when the Cincinnati Bengals made him the first overall pick.

• Eight Heisman winners are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame - Doak Walker (1948), Paul Hornung (1956), Roger Staubach (1963), O.J. Simpson (1968), Tony Dorsett (1976), Earl Campbell (1977), Marcus Allen (1981) and Barry Sanders (1988).

• Only one primarily defensive player has won the Heisman, Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson in 1997.

• Only one player, Ohio State's Archie Griffin, won the award twice. The running back earned both the 1974 and 1975 awards.

• The Heisman Trophy is designed after an actual player, Ed Smith, who played for the New York University football team in 1934.

• Two Heisman Trophy winners now have awards named for themselves. The Doak Walker Award is given to the top running back and the Davey O'Brien Award goes to the top quarterback. SMU's Walker won the Heisman in 1948 while TCU's O'Brien won in 1938.

• The Heisman Trophy was originally called the DAC (Downtown Athletic Club) Award. John W. Heisman was behind the movement to award the top collegiate football player in the country and was also the first Athletic Director of the Downtown Athletic Club. Jay Berwanger was the only winner of the DAC Award in 1935. The award was renamed for Heisman in 1936. He died of pneumonia in November of that year.

• Of the schools were Heisman coached - Auburn, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Rice, Penn and Washington and Jefferson - only Auburn has had a player win the Heisman Trophy. Pat Sullivan won the award in 1971 and Bo Jackson picked up the Heisman in 1985.