Lincicome: Just Sayin, the Heisman winner must stay above the Mendoza line

As a Heisman Trophy voter emeritus, I have retained some interest in the annual college football door prize, not enough to endorse any particular player or even to pick out one favorite from another, leaving Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza and Ohio State’s Julian Sayin to wear their names on their shirts, which they conveniently do.

Each also has embraced modern media promotion, just in case what they do on the field does not get enough attention. Indiana has a LinkedIn page for its quarterback, “Heismandoza.” Hoosier humor, but catchy.

Ohio State has a website “WeSayinHeisman,” with stats and game highlights, not meaning that Buckeyes need moving pictures, but you have not met my in-laws.

Seems like every time I see Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia he is wearing a cap with “Hei2man” or some self-promoting T-shirt or other.

All of this is in the grand tradition of Heisman Hype, a classic bit of marketing, the most famous likely being the changing of the pronunciation of Joe Theisman from “Theesman,” not that it helped.

I remember getting a blue cardboard necktie in the mail from BYU proclaiming it to be the Heisman Ty, as it Detmer. Didn’t get my vote, but Detmer won. I got a leaf in the mail (remember mail?) for Ryan Leaf. I already had enough in my yard.

Toy race cars, bobblehead dolls, those were days. Today? Well, we’ll always have Facebook.

My last Heisman vote went to one Manning or another, Eli, I think. I voted for any Manning that came along, Peyton earlier as well as the original Archie, and had I still a vote I probably would give it to Arch of Texas, out of habit.

No Manning ever won the Heisman, the most deserving being Peyton, who lost to Michigan’s Charles Woodson, while Archie lost to Jim Plunkett — no argument there — and Eli to Oklahoma’s Jason White, who never played again.

Out of 35 or so years of voting, I got the winner less than half the time. Still, I do not apologize for once voting for Jim McMahon, though I would like my Troy Smith vote back.

There is no wind gauge on these things, but it does seem as if the Heisman Trophy blather has been less in our faces. Or maybe it is because the Heisman Trophy has proved to be less accurate than a fortune cookie.

The Heisman remains college football’s glamour award and it goes to a glamour position. Quarterback is the most glamorous but is almost always oversold and almost always the product of a coach’s offensive system.

Always a mistake this, to give it a name, the Tim Tebow Error or the Johnny Manziel Boo-Boo, and do what you will with either Mendoza or Sayin.

The greatest quarterback to win was probably Plunkett, and the last good quarterback to win was Chicago’s own Caleb Williams, though all the returns are not yet in.

The coincidence of the two leading contenders meeting on the same field, on the same day, with the Big Ten prize and more on the line has had the scattered Heismanverse all atwitter.

The trouble with the Heisman is there are no real rules, no bylaws, no specific qualifications other than, and I am quoting from instructions on the ballot, (1) sign it (2) mail it (3) let the Downtown Athletic Club know if you have not received the first two instructions.

Any college football player may win the Heisman. And any dump truck might win LeMans. This is not a comment on heavy-waisted linemen, because trim defensive backs and lanky wide receivers are generally out of luck, too.

Non-quarterbacks and running backs need a gimmick, and a couple have pulled it off. Striking the Heisman pose has become the go-to stunt.

Blockers and tacklers do not win, though any one of them may be “the most outstanding player in college football,” the only Heisman directive.

The initial design for the Heisman Trophy was one of a player tackling another. It was classic, contact football, equally representing offense and defense.

The designer Frank Eliscu thought the pose the Downtown Athletic Club selected, the lone, stiff-arming runner, looked too much like a toy.

Having a peripheral stake in this year’s Heisman winner, I suppose I should be rooting for Sayin to win. This is more consideration than I usually give the thing, but old-school ties and all that, not that I ever wore one.