Published: May 11, 2008 02:18 am            

COLUMN: White must improve to win Heisman

MORGANTOWN — It’s never too early for:

• Blueberry pancakes.

• The first day of spring.

• Your income tax refund arriving.

• Discussions of Pat White’s chances to win this year’s Heisman Trophy

And with a full stomach, a warm day and knowing the check is in the mail, today we will take a look to see if West Virginia’s do-everything quarterback really has a legitimate chance to becoming the first player in school history to walk off with the Heisman hardware.

It is easy, of course, knowing one’s audience to say yes, that it would be an injustice if he doesn’t win the award if he has the kind of season he’s capable of having.

But that is to ignore the fact that White, as spectacular a player as he is, faces one of the toughest Heisman fields in a long time and a trend to give it to younger players that could work against him.

Let’s first look what is in his favor, and that is a very full plate, indeed.

Not only is the best running quarterback in the country, he well might be the best of all-time and, to his credit, he built his reputation and statistics playing on a team that featured a consensus All-American running back in Steve Slaton to take away potential carries and publicity.

This year, however, Slaton is gone and while Noel Devine may actually offer an improvement over Slaton, he still must prove himself getting 20 carries a game.

White figures to run as much as he did in the past and to so just as well or better, while working in an offense that will feature him more as a passer. Heisman voters don’t like to see quarterbacks who pass for fewer than 2,000 yards, no matter what their ability to run.

As the focal point of a team that figures again to be in the Top 10, to challenge for the Big East title and that has aspirations for a national title, White should even be able to overcome the image of the conference being among the lesser of the BCS leagues and of playing in West Virginia, where there is no power media.

But the cast of characters that make up the preseason Heisman contenders is star-studded and, to make it even tougher, deep in quarterbacks who seem as electrifying as is White.

To add to that, with so many players now leaving college football to test the NFL draft before their senior year there is less reluctance to give the award to an underclassman.

When Tim Tebow of Florida became the first sophomore in history to win the award, it seemed to take class consideration out of play. Indeed the list of this year’s candidates is not only filled with quarterbacks, but with underclassmen who now are being looked upon as an equal with their elders, sort of erasing whatever influence a player’s career accomplishment may have on the voters.

For example, CBSSports.com put out its top dozen candidates and it broke down this way:

• Five sophomores

• Three juniors

• Four seniors

By position, there were seven quarterbacks, three running backs, one wide receiver and one running back/wide receiver.

The quarterbacks and underclassmen, of course, are led by Tebow, who is the focal point of the Florida offense and accounted for an amazing 55 touchdowns last (32 passing, 23 rushing), compared to White’s evenly distributed 28.

And Tebow might not even be the strongest competitor for White, as Chase Daniel returns at Missouri, Todd Ressing at Kansas, Graham Harrell at Texas Tech with his 5,708 passing yard and 48 touchdowns and Sam Bradford from Oklahoma, who was outplayed by White in the Fiesta Bowl but who is only a sophomore and improving.

The three running backs are all sophomores and probably not on a par with the quarterbacks in that they weren’t really highly publicized last year. They include Devine, who would seem to be a stretch this year; Ohio State’s Chris “Beanie” Wells, who rushed for 1,609 yards, and Georgia’s Knowshon Moreno, who had 1,334 yards last season, one less yard than White.

The wide receiver is the amazing Eric Crabtree, Harrell’s top target at Texas Tech, who caught only 10 less passes than White attempted for more than 200 more yards and with eight more touchdowns than the 14 White threw.

Those two, however, are at Texas Tech, which would be similar to playing at WVU, and probably will steal votes from each other.

The all-around player is Missouri’s Jeremy Maclin, a sophomore who caught passes for 1,055 yards, rushed for 375 and returned kicks, but who will overshadowed by Daniel in the voting.

Can White win the Heisman? Yes, but he will have to be better than he’s ever been.

Now, let’s head out to the mailbox and see if that refund check is here yet.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.

        

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