Tag: USC Heisman Trophy

The story of USC’s 8 Heisman winners is the story of the Heisman Trophy’s 87-year history

The progression of #USC Heisman winners mirrors the larger story of the #Heisman Trophy since its first year in 1935. We explain.

USC is part of a much larger theater of activity and history in college football. In some ways, the Trojans are unique in college football history. This 2022 Heisman Trophy ceremony magnified that fact, and we will explain why as we continue this particular examination of Heisman history.

Yet, for all the ways in which USC is unique — and stands above the crowd — in Heisman history, the Trojans are also an embodiment of the changes which have occurred in college football and the Heisman itself over the years.

There’s plenty to unpack about the evolution of the Heisman in relation to the progression of college football over a larger period of time … and how USC fits within that bigger story:

Social media reaction to Caleb Williams’ 2022 Heisman Trophy

After #USC QB Caleb Williams won the #Heisman Trophy on Saturday night, the reactions poured in from everywhere, including past Heisman winners.

The Heisman Trophy’s 2022 award ceremony wasn’t the least bit surprising.

All week long, USC Trojans quarterback Caleb Williams was the favorite to win the award, and he did just that on Saturday night.

Williams defeated TCU QB Max Duggan, Ohio State QB C.J. Stroud, and Georgia QB Stetson Bennett in that order to win the award and become USC’s 8th (including Reggie Bush) Heisman winner. 

Moreover, he is now the third quarterback to win the award with Lincoln Riley as the head coach. Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield were the other two at Oklahoma.

The reactions were pervasive. After the season Williams just had, this was an easy decision:

Special facts about all 8 USC Heisman Trophy winners

The USC Trojans have had 7 #Heisman winners before Caleb Williams. #USC’s imprint on football history continues to grow.

Eight is enough … for now. USC hopes to have even more Heisman Trophy winners in the next decade under Lincoln Riley, but the future can wait. Right now, Riley has delivered USC a Heisman winner in his first season in Los Angeles. Caleb Williams was announced as the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner on Saturday night in New York.

Caleb Williams joins Mike Garrett (1965), O.J. Simpson (1968), Charles White (1979), Marcus Allen (1981), Carson Palmer (2002), Matt Leinart (2004), and Reggie Bush (2005) as a USC Heisman winner.

It’s a night to celebrate Caleb Williams’ accomplishments. It’s also a night to pay tribute to the Heisman winners who have gone before Caleb, establishing a Heisman history at USC. Here are a few special facts about each of USC’s eight Heisman winners:

Caleb Williams gives USC more Heismans than any other school, and Lincoln Riley 3 in the last 6 years

Which three schools did #USC pass on the all-time #Heisman list? Where does Lincoln Riley stand among #Heisman coaches? More in this Heisman fact sheet:

The Heisman Trophy carries a lot of history with it. This is more than just a reflection of the fact that the most prestigious individual award in American sports is 87 years old, dating back to 1935 when Jay Berwanger became the first Heisman winner. College football history is interwoven with the history of the Heisman, since this award’s winners have so often shaped the narrative arc and dramatic tensions of each college football seasons.

It is true that the Heisman vote can easily devolve into a contest of which College Football Playoff quarterback had the best season. To that extent, Heisman voting has lost the plot. However, Heisman voters did not get it wrong this year. Caleb Williams really was the best player in college football.

Let’s look at the history of the Heisman Trophy and how Caleb Williams, USC, and Lincoln Riley all fit into it:

Caleb Williams becomes USC’s first Maxwell Award winner since Marcus Allen in 1981

Marcus Allen won the #Heisman in 1981, in case you’re wondering what this likely means for Caleb Williams, 41 years later. #USC

The Thursday before the Heisman Trophy ceremony is a night for college football’s various end-of-season awards: Outland, Bednarik, Biletnikoff, Rimington, Davey O’Brien, Nagurski, and all the rest. Caleb Williams of USC didn’t win everything on Thursday — TCU quarterback Max Duggan won the Davey O’Brien Award for best quarterback, which should not cause too much concern about the Heisman Trophy.

Keep in mind that Davey O’Brien went to TCU. He was TCU’s first Heisman Trophy winner in 1938. The chance to give the Davey O’Brien Award to a TCU player was too good to pass up. It was and is a lovely gesture and a real feel-good moment for Duggan, a chance to give him a piece of hardware and make sure he didn’t get shut out.

If Duggan did not get the O’Brien, he wouldn’t have won the Maxwell or Walter Camp Awards.

Caleb Williams — already the Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year and a Pac-12 First-Team All-American — earned the Maxwell and Camp Awards on a night when he added to his collection of hardware.

The Heisman is next.

Williams’ capture of the Maxwell Award makes him USC’s first Maxwell winner since Marcus Allen in 1981.

You might be wondering: Didn’t USC have three subsequent Heisman winners? Yes. Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, and Reggie Bush did not win the Maxwell in their Heisman seasons. Larry Johnson beat Palmer in 2002. Jason White won the Maxwell over Leinart in 2004. Vince Young won in 2005.

Caleb Williams snapped USC’s 41-year Maxwell Award drought.

Now, all eyes turn to Saturday night for the big one at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York.

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Reggie Bush: USC Heisman Trophy profile

Reggie Bush’s #Heisman was officially vacated, but we will never forget his 2005 season. No one can take away the memory of hearing his name called. That’s eternal.

Reggie Bush was stripped of his Heisman Trophy, a fact everyone knows, but the whole notion of a stripped or vacated award is the dumbest punishment in sports. Imagine stripping the Houston Astros of their World Series title for cheating. That wouldn’t change the fact that the Astros celebrated in 2017 and the Los Angeles Dodgers walked off the field in Game 7 sad and heartbroken that they didn’t win.

A real punishment for the Astros would have been to suspend Jose Altuve a full season without pay. That would have actually affected (hurt) the Astros’ ability to win a championship.

That point aside, what happened to Reggie Bush and his Heisman would not be an NCAA violation today, in the world of NIL. Bush would have been able to cash in on the opportunity to play college sports. As with the other things USC was punished for at the end of the Pete Carroll era, those violations look like such small potatoes today, in a larger context. It’s just one reason why Bush deserves his 2005 Heisman Trophy back.

Saturday, Caleb Williams should become USC’s first Heisman winner since Bush. The official record books say that USC has only six Heisman winners, but we know Bush celebrated winning the award 17 years ago. If you want to be technical and precise about it, fine: USC doesn’t have seven Heisman winners according to the official record book, but it does have seven men who have heard their name called as Heisman winners on Heisman Night. It has seven men who have posed with the Heisman Trophy after being declared the winner.

Saturday, Caleb Williams will make it eight, more than any other school.

Let’s look back at Reggie Bush’s 2005 season and his football playing career:

Matt Leinart: USC Heisman Trophy profile

With Caleb Williams heading to New York as a favorite to win the #Heisman, let’s examine the portfolio of #USC great Matt Leinart.

You can say that Matt Leinart had it all at USC: He had the defense, he had Reggie Bush, he had Dwayne Jarrett, he had Steve Smith, he had LenDale White, he had Pete Carroll.

That’s the point.

USC was a complete team with Leinart being a very big part of it. Sure, Leinart had help, but his presence at quarterback made the whole thing work. No Leinart, no 34-game winning streak. No Leinart, no back-to-back nationalk championships and a great Rose Bowl performance which easily could have given USC a third straight title, had it not been for Vince Young putting on his Superman cape to rescue the Texas Longhorns.

Leinart’s value to USC emerged the year after he left. John David Booty wasn’t a bad quarterback … but he wasn’t Matt Leinart. USC fell short of the national championship game.

Leinart, who grew up in the 2003 Auburn win and just kept getting better from that point onward, grew into his position at USC and worked hard to gain everything he had.

Yes, he had it all … and he worked to get to that point. That’s the key detail to absorb as we reflect on Leinart’s Heisman Trophy-winning career during “USC Heisman Week.” We celebrate past Trojan Heisman winners before Caleb Williams becomes Heisman winner No. 8 on Saturday evening in New York.

Enjoy this retrospective on Matt Leinart’s shimmering, sparkling USC journey:

Marcus Allen: USC Heisman Trophy profile

Marcus Allen produced a wildly successful NFL career defined by an epic run in Super Bowl XVIII. Before attaining Raider glory, Allen became a #Heisman winner for #USC.

Marcus Allen won Rose Bowls. He won a college national championship at USC. He won the Super Bowl. He made a very difficult and unforgiving position — running back — look very easy, with his smooth and graceful running style. Allen was a fluid and resourceful athlete, but no one plays running back as long or as well as he did without being a very tough human being an a first-rate competitor. Marcus Allen made USC better. He made the Raiders better. He made his teams better.

USC prepares for another Heisman Trophy victory on Saturday, with Caleb Williams being fully expected to lift the stiff-arm trophy at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York. There is no better week to profile each of USC’s seven Heisman winners.

We continue our series with Marcus Allen, the 1981 winner who followed Charles White (1979) by two years. Reggie Bush, in 2005, became USC’s most recent running back to win the award, but Allen won the Heisman at a time when Student Body Right was firmly entrenched as a part of the Trojans’ football identity. He was the last great running back John Robinson had. In several ways, he marked the end of an era at USC.

Let’s look at some of his carer highlights:

Charles White: USC Heisman Trophy profile

Pound for pound, no #USC running back was tougher than Charles White. At a school known for its running backs, White stood above them all. #Heisman

O.J. Simpson created what most experts believe is the greatest, most famous play in USC football history, the 64-yard run against UCLA in 1967 to beat the Bruins in a matchup of top-four teams. That game propelled USC to a national championship, which makes O.J.’s play more significant than 4th and 9 or the Bush Push in 2005 versus Notre Dame.

However, while O.J. has the greatest play in USC football history, and while O.J. created a much bigger national name for himself, USC’s best running back ever is probably Charles White. O.J. had the better pro career, but strictly within their collegiate careers, White played more seasons and had a best season (his 1979 Heisman year) which was better than O.J.’s best season, his majestic 1968 Heisman conquest.

Charles White is simply the greatest workhorse running back at a school known for workhorse running backs. Pound for pound, no USC running back was tougher than Charles White. That statement speaks to how great he was in college. That statement also has a dark side: White’s on-field fearlessness carried a great price. The effects of the pounding White took are evident today. White has suffered brain damage and is a sad reminder of the toll this sport takes on the people who play it. It’s not something to be ignored.

In this Heisman profile, we’ll include a Bill Plaschke story from the Los Angeles Times which we noted earlier in 2022 at Trojans Wire:

O.J. Simpson: USC Heisman Trophy profile

O.J. Simpson was one of the best college football players of all time. His #Heisman win for #USC in 1968 was simply spectacular.

USC’s most famous Heisman Trophy winner became USC’s most infamous Heisman Trophy winner. Before that summer of 1994 when everything about Orenthal James Simpson’s life and reputation completely changed, he was a Monday Night Football announcer. He was an ever-present pitchman for various commercial brands. Simpson was a Black athlete corporate America loved. He was a smiling, pleasant face on national television who cultivated an easy-to-digest image.

It all started with his iconic, unforgettable cutback run against the UCLA Bruins in November of 1967. O.J. defeated that year’s Heisman winner, UCLA quarterback Gary Beban, in an epic 21-20 victory which sent USC to the 1968 Rose Bowl. The Trojans beat Indiana and won John McKay’s second national title.

During Heisman week, we look back at O.J.’s Heisman story at USC. The Trojans are about to win their eighth Heisman Trophy when Caleb Williams takes center stage at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York.