10 biggest snubs in Heisman Trophy history
By John Buhler
4. 2006: Darren McFadden
The 2006 college football season was a campaign where the Ohio State Buckeyes got way more love than they deserved. Quarterback Troy Smith would win the Heisman Trophy and Ohio State would get completely boat raced by the Florida Gators in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl for the national title.
2006 was really the change of guard from Big Ten to SEC in the college football landscape. The best player in the SEC that year –and one of the best running backs in SEC history– was denied his Heisman that season. How did Arkansas Razorbacks running back Darren McFadden never win the Heisman?
Smith would win the award by the widest margin in the history in the Heisman over McFadden. The Ohio State quarterback would only become a practice squad player for the Baltimore Ravens, while McFadden went No. 4 overall to the Oakland Raiders in the 2008 NFL Draft. Injuries derailed what could have been an unbelievable NFL career for McFadden.
When he was at Arkansas, McFadden played with the physicality of Herschel Walker and the breakaway speed of Bo Jackson. One could argue that McFadden was a better collegiate running back than either Alabama Crimson Tide Heisman winner Mark Ingram or Derrick Henry.
Since joining the SEC in 1992, Arkansas was a near-national power under head coaches Houston Nutt, and later Bobby Petrino from 2002 to 2008. McFadden is the seminal player of Razorbacks football.
The voters going with Smith that year over McFadden was clearly a contingency of front-running groupthink. McFadden would lose to Florida’s Tim Tebow next year and nobody batted an eyelash because Tebow is a top-10 college player of all-time. We’re rapidly forgetting about McFadden and those great Hog teams. It’s a shame.