POY vs. MOP

POY vs. MOP

I’ve always heard that the Maxwell Award winner is often times the Heisman Trophy winner; therefore the theory is that the former is a predictor of the latter since the presentation of each award is seperated by merely a day and (I think) Heisman ballots have already been cast and counted by the time the Maxwell is awarded (confirmed – “The deadline for receipt of the (Heisman) ballots is 5:00 p.m., Wednesday, December 10, 2008.“).  There’s a lot of punctuation at the end of that sentence, some of which may be wrong…anywho, let’s test this theory.

The Maxwell Football Club awarded their first Maxwell Award in 1937 and defines it as the award given to college football’s player of the year.  The Downtown Athletic Club defines their award as one given to the most outstanding college football player and awarded their first Heisman Trophy in 1935.

Last night, Tim Tebow of Florida was awarded his second straight Maxwell Award.  And tomorrow (Saturday), Tebow will be joining Sam Bradford of Oklahoma and Colt McCoy of Texas as the three invitees to the Downtown Athletic Club for presentation of the Heisman Memorial Trophy. 

Hmmm; “player of the year” and “most outstanding player” should be one in the same, right?  As I always say, when you don’t know enough information to make something up that’s beleivable to somebody that may or may not know any better, check the facts.  Since there’s 70 years of overlap between the two awards, there’s plenty of data.  Here’s the results:

Maxwell Winner = Heisman Winner:
34 / 70 = 48.6% 

Maxwell Winner = Heisman Runner-up:
13 / 70 = 18.6%

Here’s the last 20 years of each award:

MAXWELL AWARD HEISMAN MEMORIAL TROPHY
Year Winner Year Winner Runner-Up
1988 Barry Sanders 1988 Barry Sanders Rodney Peete
1989 Anthony Thompson 1989 Andre Ware Anthony Thompson 
1990 Ty Detmer 1990 Ty Detmer Raghib Ismail
1991 Desmond Howard 1991 Desmond Howard Casey Weldon
1992 Gino Torretta 1992 Gino Torretta Marshall Faulk
1993 Charlie Ward 1993 Charlie Ward Heath Shuler
1994 Kerry Collins 1994 Rashaan Salaam Ki-Jana Carter
1995 Eddie George 1995 Eddie George Tommie Frazier
1996 Danny Wuerffel 1996 Danny Wuerffel Troy Davis
1997 Peyton Manning 1997 Charles Woodson Peyton Manning
1998 Ricky Williams 1998 Ricky Williams Michael Bishop
1999 Ron Dayne 1999 Ron Dayne Joe Hamilton
2000 Drew Brees 2000 Chris Weinke Josh Heupel
2001 Ken Dorsey 2001 Eric Crouch Rex Grossman
2002 Larry Johnson 2002 Carson Palmer Brad Banks
2003 Eli Manning 2003 Jason White Larry Fitzgerald
2004 Jason White 2004 Matt Leinart Adrian Peterson
2005 Vince Young 2005 Reggie Bush Vince Young
2006 Brady Quinn 2006 Troy Smith Darren McFadden
2007 Tim Tebow 2007 Tim Tebow Darren McFadden
2008 Tim Tebow 2008 ???? ????

As you can see, the “player of the year” is also either the “most outstanding player” or what I like to call the “second-most outstanding player” at a rate of only 67.1%. 

So, what does this mean?  It means that these awards agree that the “player of the year” is also the “most outstanding player” at a rate slightly less than every other year.  Therefore, my conclusion is that since this alignment has happened once already for Tim Tebow, it will not happen again.

Mark Mizerle06

Senior writer and editor at TVF, East Tennessee born and raised, fueled by tasty burritos with hot salsa, and intimate lover of college football. You can holler at me via mizerle06@gmail.com.

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