SUH-perman!

Suh The Right Thing


Voters finally have a chance to make the Heisman a meaningful award again. This is the year. Yep, time to put your money where your mouth is, throw the politics out the window and vote a defensive player into the Top 3 of the Heisman finalists where you know he belongs. I'm not telling anyone that they have to vote Suh #1. It is subjective criteria, after all. But you can't in good conscience or sound judgment, put him lower then third. McCoy is out of the conversation- he folded like an origami dragon at Chinese New Year against the only tough competition (OU/NU) he faced all year. I wouldn't vote him higher than about 8th, well behind the other finalists as well as guys like CJ Spiller, Tony Pike and Case Keenum. Heck, I'd put the true freshman Dion Lewis from Pitt ahead of McCoy. None of them had the supporting cast that McCoy did. Tebow on the other hand has always been deserving- you throw the stats out when you've willed your team to victory all year- except he just was not himself in the SEC champ. game, and that is the one game where Florida needed him most. Gerhardt and Ingram put out their best efforts against top competition, just like Suh did all year- so I'd have to put those 3 as my finalists.

However, here is the difference between Suh and the other two. Suh is the only athlete who literally changed the landscape of the game and became bigger than his position. It takes a rare athlete indeed to accomplish this feat. Barry Sanders did it in 1988. Bo Jackson embodied it. Reggie Bush was beyond extraordinary. Tebow did it 2 years ago when he came on the scene and literally took over the sport at his position. He changed the way the quarterback plays, motivates and leads his team. Suh changed the way a defensive lineman controls the outcome of a game. He transcended the position of DT and EASILY made those around him better. Did Gerhardt or Ingram do the same? I argue no. To say that Suh's masterpiece was in his biggest game of the year is to forget that it was only one masterpiece of many masterpieces. It's like asking which of Mozart's symphonies was his finest? Each of them simply defied logic. Fan or not, you are drawn to Suh because of his relentless passion to dominate his opponent, his sheer unnatural strength, and perhaps above all, his humble and business-like demeanor, which is a rare trait indeed in these times. Suh is the first college football player to make NOT watching the ball sexy. He didn't just put the Blackshirts back on the college football map; he drew the map, colored it in and then stamped it with his 6 foot 4, 300 lb wrecking ball frame. In two years his defense passed 100 other teams in statistical improvement: moving from 103rd in the nation to 3rd. Think about that- 100 other teams. All great athletes leave everything they have on the field. Suh left not only all of himself, but many opposing body parts as well. He was not a man among boys, but a giant among insects. A humble giant who led never with his mouth but only by his example. By coming back for his senior year, he forever etched his place in college football history as one of The Greats. Capital T, capital G. There is only so much room in the history books reserved for those types of athletes. Lucky for Suh, forcing his way in has never been a problem. Which is why I would vote Suh for Heisman.