Has the Heisman Trophy lost its luster?

Winning the Heisman Trophy had been the be-all and end-all of college football previously but is it still a big deal to win the award in the 21st century?

The Heisman Trophy has lost its luster.

Everybody loves a good story. More importantly, everybody loves to be entertained. It’s what gives college football the best regular season of any sport in the world. Every game matters. You lose once and you’re season might be over. Often, there is a quarterback or running back who takes his team to the promised land and wins the Heisman Trophy along the way.

Historically, it has been an award given to the best upperclassmen quarterback or running back playing mostly for a national title contender. It was more running back than quarterback during the award’s first several decades, but that seems to have flipped in the 21st century. Now, we’re looking at a high-profile signal-caller winning the award nearly 85 percent of the time since 2000.

In recent years, many have questioned the award’s validity if it truly recognizes the best player in college football? Unless you have the ball in your hands at least 40 times a game and account for multiple scores in every contest you play, you have no shot.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the best passer in a decade, the greatest receiver in conference history or a blue-chip, blind-side protector, the folks who vote on the Heisman Trophy are largely stuck in the past. They vote for the best quarterback or running back from their region that has the best shot at winning the award. Heck, they’ll even cast their ballot before enjoying Thanksgiving turkey.

What this does is give us a glorified popularity contest every single early December. The three-to-five young men invited to New York have to sit in a stuffy room near Times Square and hear all about the greatest college football fraternity they can ever be a part of. The only problem is two-to-four star players don’t end up getting a bid, many of whom had no shot to even begin with.

So we have to ask this question: Does the Heisman Trophy still matter? Is it as big of a deal as it used to be? Where can the award ceremony improve and does it have any hope of getting any better anytime soon?

In short, the Heisman still matters, but winning a national championship and getting drafted in the top 10 of the following NFL Draft matters more. The winner might have had a great November in his early 20s playing quarterback, but that doesn’t mean he’s the best player in college football. If you really want to examine this, many times the best NFL prospect doesn’t even win the award.

Since 2000, we can safely say that only four Heisman winners lived up to lofty expectations professionally. They are USC Trojans quarterback Carson Palmer (2002), Alabama Crimson Tide running back Mark Ingram Jr. (2009), Auburn Tigers quarterback Cam Newton (2010) and Alabama running back Derrick Henry (2015).

It looks likely Louisville Cardinals quarterback Lamar Jackson (2016) has hit big but it’s too early to tell with Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield (2017) and Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray (2019). There is no guarantee of success at the professional level even after winning the Heisman Trophy. More often than not, they bust out of the league.

There are three ways to improve the overall Heisman Trophy experience and they are incredibly easy to enact.

The first improvement is to make it five finalists every single year. Not three, not four, but five annually. We can call it the Heisman 5 and get it sponsored by a Fortune 500 company. This will add one or two more men to split the vote and hear the football stories told.

Next, make the Heisman Trophy better and matter once again is to require these two stipulations with the so-called Heisman 5: No more than three quarterbacks, at least two non-quarterbacks, one on offense and one on defense. That way, we get the best defensive player in the country and the best skill position player or offensive lineman to the ceremony.

Lastly, the third improvement and the most important thing we can do is to make every Heisman ballot submitted before the conference championship weekend invalid and revoke that voter’s Heisman voting privileges. There are five games to watch over two days. Do your job.

If any of those three suggested improvements are enacted, then we might get the most exciting Heisman Trophy ceremony of our lives. People are easily distracted and won’t tune into award ceremonies unless they absolutely have to watch them. Create urgency and bring this antiquated trophy presentation into the 21st century. Give us something we’ve never seen and we’ll watch.

For more NCAA football news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided, including Heisman Trophy and College Football Playoff rankings, be sure to bookmark these pages.