Heisman snubs: 10 best players who got the stiff-arm from Heisman voters

Every year, members of the media vote on the Heisman Trophy. Oftentimes, they get it so wrong. Here are 10 football players who had their Heisman stolen.

The most prestigious award in college football will be handed out as it is every December. Of course, we are talking about the Heisman Trophy. It has been handed out every year since 1935 when halfback Jay Berwanger won it as a member of the Chicago Maroons.

For much of the award’s lifetime, it has been little more than a quarterback or running back award. On a very rare occasion, you’ll get a defensive player, a wide receiver or a tight end. However, unless you play quarterback for a contending team or have a dominating season on the ground, this award is not going to go your way, no matter how deserving you might be.

Naturally, the people who vote on the Heisman Trophy often end up getting it wrong. Over time, the guy who should have won it will end up either having a better pro career than that year’s Heisman or he will earn his rightful spot in the College Football Hall of Fame for his collegiate accomplishments the Heisman votes didn’t seem to truly appreciate at the time.

Since the mid-1990s, this award has gone almost exclusively to a signal-caller or a bell-cow back who rushes for nearly 2,000 yards. Some years, the voters get it right. In the last 25 years, here are 10 instances where the voters got it so wrong, as someone was unfortunately robbed of the Heisman Trophy that should have gone his way. They had it in some manner stolen from them.

Drew Brees will go down as one of the most prolific passers in NFL history. He is the greatest player in New Orleans Saints franchise history and one of the 10 greatest quarterbacks to ever play in the NFL. But before all of that, he was a superstar signal-caller for the Purdue Boilermakers. However, he only finished in third place for the 2000 Heisman Trophy.

The winner that year was Florida State Seminoles quarterback Chris Weinke, who was a 28-year-old signal-caller who had previously embarked on a professional baseball career in the Toronto Blue Jays organization. Weinke might have won a national championship at Florida State the year before over Michael Vick‘s Virginia Tech Hokies, but Weinke was a man playing among boys.

Sure, the second-place finisher in Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Josh Heupel may have been a better pick over Weinke that year, as his team defeated Florida State in the Orange Bowl en route to an undefeated national championship season. But like Weinke, Heupel never accomplished much at the professional level. He has done a marvelous job as a head football coach, though.

The reason it should have been Brees over Weinke and Heupel is that Brees was doing this at Purdue and not at traditional football powers like Florida State and Oklahoma. Undersized, Brees wasn’t heavily recruited in his native Texas. It was The Lone Star State’s loss and Purdue’s gain. In short, Brees was a guy who elevated those around him and didn’t need a blue-blood to carry him.