Alabama’s Bobby Humphrey, a longtime supporter of Mark Ingram’s Heisman candidacy, talks about what he thought when he found out Ingram won the Heisman Trophy last Saturday.
Oh, I was excited when I heard the news about Mark Ingram’s Heisman victory.
I mean, this was a big milestone. For a sophomore to not only win, but to win Alabama’s first Heisman? That’s incredible.
I thought he was very deserving and that he had a phenomenal year and I’m just happy that the voters overlooked that he was a sophomore and instead realized he was just well-deserving of the award. As a former running back who has seen him run on every week, and compared to all the other guys, without any biases I thought he was deserving of the award.
Even so, I wasn’t 100 percent sure he was going to win. I felt like he would probably be overlooked because voters could always reason that this kid is going to be good for the next couple of years if he decides to stay long. Voters could’ve figured he could win the Heisman the next year or the year after that.
That was a thought that went through my mind and who knows if that plays into the picture of some of the voters. But obviously it didn’t this time because they felt that regardless of what his status was, they chose him as the winner. And I applaud the voters for that.
There shouldn’t be any other reason to win the Heisman Trophy other than the person that goes out there and puts together the best performance for their particular team on that particular season. That is the only criteria that should play into who should win the Heisman.
So I felt he was truly one of the guys that performed week in and week out. Although he didn’t have a very good game with Auburn, that was just one game. But there were several ball games where he didn’t play a full ball game. So he could’ve really padded the numbers if he chose to do that or if the coaching staff chose to pad the numbers to get him the Heisman.
He could’ve obviously rushed for over 2,000 yards if he played in much of the second half of several ball games but he sat out because the team had such comfortable leads going into the second half.
So I applaud the voters for what they did in terms of voting the guy that they felt was the best player on the field and who added value to his particular team.
Now I don’t think the SEC Championship Game won him the Heisman. Granted, I watched him just about every week and have seen the things that he was doing. But I don’t think that one game alone sealed it for a lot of the voters. I think a lot of the voters recognized what he brought to the table before that game.
Now I thought he lost some of his thunder after the Auburn game, but he picked that back up in the SEC Championship.
To perform on a national stage like he performed and to accomplish the things that he’s accomplished, I thought it sent a little bit of a shock wave to people like “Hey, this Mark Ingram is the real deal.”
Bobby Humphrey is Alabama’s second all-time leading rusher and is currently a sales rep for Ready Mix USA concrete company.
Got a question or comment? E-mail him here
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