<\/p>\n
In the book Freakonomics<\/em>, authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner ask the question: does your name affect how much success you have in life?\u00a0 <\/span>My favorite story from that chapter was of twin boys- one named Winner, the other Loser.\u00a0 <\/span>Strangely enough, Winner fell into a life of petty crime while Loser was a star athlete, which led to a scholarship, which led to a career as an NYC cop, which eventually led to a promotion to Detective.\u00a0 <\/span> Clearly there\u2019s something to the boy-named-Sue effect.\u00a0 <\/span>But someone must not have told that to the Tate family 21 years ago when they decided to name their boy Golden.\u00a0 <\/span>The Notre Dame wide receiver seems to have no problem succeeding in spite of his given name.\u00a0 <\/span>However, something\u2019s holding him\u2014or us\u2014back, because despite all his heroics the college football community seems to refuse to take note and consider him for the award he deserves.\u00a0 <\/span>In fact Golden Tate\u2019s general lack of Heisman buzz leaves me wondering:\u00a0 <\/span>just what is holding Tate back from national Heisman credit? Maybe it\u2019s his school.<\/strong> Notre Dame\u2014with seven Heisman winners\u2014is tied with Ohio State and USC for the most all-time, so it seems a little silly to say the school hurts his bid.\u00a0 <\/span>But despite all the hype that Notre Dame brings, there appears to be a backlash from the voters.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s been 22 years since the Fighting Irish last had a Heisman winner, and it was 23 years before that that they won another one.\u00a0 <\/span>Since Tim Brown won Notre Dame\u2019s last Heisman nearly a quarter-century ago Florida, Florida State, Michigan, Ohio State, and Oklahoma have all won two trophies, and in that same span USC has won three.\u00a0 <\/span>The Trojans in the last seven years have won more Heismans than Notre Dame has in the last fifty.\u00a0 <\/span>And it\u2019s not for lack of talent\u2014 during that time names like Theisman, Montana, Quinn, Ryan Grant and Jerome Bettis have all passed under the Golden Dome and gone home without being considered \u201cCollege Football\u2019s Best.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>So, despite the TV coverage, despite the national attention, despite the talent, despite the success (ya know, back when the Irish were successful), Notre Dame has never had as much recognition when it comes to postseason awards as you might think.\u00a0 <\/span>Is the Heisman supposed to reward only BCS conference teams? Maybe it\u2019s his position.<\/strong> Look back at those 5 names.\u00a0 <\/span>Notice what two positions they played?\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s a reason I felt those particular players could have won the award.\u00a0 <\/span>You have to be a running back or quarterback to have any shot at the Heisman.\u00a0 <\/span>During these last 50 years the Irish may have only two Heismans, but even more unbelievable is that only three non-QB\/RBs have won the award.\u00a0 <\/span>It begs the question: just what is the Heisman supposed to recognize?\u00a0 <\/span>Is it the best player in college football or is it the MVP of college football?\u00a0 <\/span>If it\u2019s supposed to award a breakout player, a total domination of his position, of the entire game, then you\u2019d be hard pressed to find another guy as worthy as Golden Tate.\u00a0 <\/span> Desmond Howard was the last receiver to win the award with his 62 receptions for 985 yards. \u00a0<\/span>He had one kickoff return for a TD, another punt return for a TD, and two more rushing.\u00a0 <\/span>Tim Brown\u2019s numbers were slightly less impressive, 39 catches, 846 yards.\u00a0 <\/span>Only three TD catches.\u00a0 <\/span>But he did return three punts for TDs.\u00a0 <\/span>All of those numbers pale in comparison to Tate\u2019s.\u00a0 <\/span>He has 93 catches for 1500 yards, he has 15 TDs through the air, another two TDs rushing, and a return for a TD as well.\u00a0 <\/span> Think about those numbers for a second.\u00a0 <\/span>He had nearly as many catches this year as the only two Wide Receiver Heisman Trophy winners combined.\u00a0 <\/span>And he kept a 16 yard-per-catch average despite the sheer quantity of balls thrown his way.\u00a0 <\/span>Even more impressive is that he stepped up his game as the competition got tougher.\u00a0 <\/span>He\u2019s got 12 touchdowns in the last seven games, he\u2019s got seven games with nine catches or more.\u00a0 <\/span>In fact when his coach\u2019s job was on the line he had his best game of the year: 10 catches, 200 yards, three TDs.\u00a0 <\/span>Don\u2019t punish Tate for his defenses\u2019 shortcomings, instead look at his numbers again.\u00a0 <\/span>Yes Toby Gerhart in that same game was impressive, but wide receiver is much tougher to make a difference on a game than running backs or quarterbacks.\u00a0 <\/span>Yet there was Golden, one-third as many touches as Gerhart, just as big an impact. Notre Dame has scored at least 20 points in every game this year.\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s not something Gerhart and Stanford can say.\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s not something Colt Mccoy and Texas can say.\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s not something Ingram and Alabama can say.\u00a0 <\/span>Is the Heisman supposed to reward consistency? Maybe it\u2019s his coach<\/strong> But if it is an MVP award then surely it would be tough to award it to a team that lost four straight, despite Tate\u2019s 570 yards, 37 catches, and 6 TDs during that stretch.\u00a0 <\/span>How embarrassing for the college football community that the best player in the country played on a team that fired their coach?\u00a0 <\/span>Gasp, what will the neighbors think?\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s the same reason Kellen Moore of Boise State won\u2019t get invited to New York, because it would just be so uncouth to invite someone from outside the BCS conferences.\u00a0 <\/span> More than any other sport, NCAA college football is all about appearances, it\u2019s about saying the BCS works when everyone knows that\u2019s a lie.\u00a0 <\/span>Like saying your wife\u2019s a hero instead of a golf club-wielding maniac. If Charlie Weis got a stay of execution, then maybe Golden would have a chance, but when his coach got the ax, so did the Heisman invite.\u00a0 <\/span>But is the Heisman supposed to reward team success, or individual talent? Maybe it\u2019s his name<\/strong> With Coach Weis gone, Jimmy Clausen\u2019s taking his black eye and leaving for the NFL.\u00a0 <\/span>And with the two of them gone, Golden\u2019s leaving too.\u00a0 <\/span>In other words, this past year was our last chance to watch the most explosive and clutch player in the NCAA.\u00a0 <\/span> What is the Heisman supposed to represent?\u00a0 <\/span>Is it supposed to be the face of the NCAA?\u00a0 <\/span>Of the last nine Heisman winners eight were quarterbacks, seven were white, all of them with good All-American names.\u00a0 <\/span>Sam, Tim, Troy, Matt these are the names of Heisman winners.\u00a0 <\/span>Sure there\u2019s the occasional Rashaan, but for every one of those, there\u2019s about ten Johns.\u00a0 <\/span> There\u2019s never been a Heisman trophy winner named \u201cGolden\u201d but if the Trophy is supposed to go to the best player, then it\u2019s about time we change that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before you just hand the trophy to another big school quarterback or workhorse running back, look at the receiver from Notre Dame with the awesome name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2630"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2630"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}