Saturday threw a giant monkey wrench into the Brady Quinn Heisman campaign, but it might not have derailed it all together. While Quinn’s performance was certainly not Heisman worthy, he still has 9 more games to impress Heisman voters, and if we’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s more about how you finish, not how you start.Here’s a comparison between Quinn and Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart, two USC quarterbacks who have recently won the award after three games into their Heisman seasons.
Statistics Through 3 games – Quinn/Leinart/Palmer |
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| Brady Quinn (2006) | Matt Leinart (2004) | Carson Palmer (2002) | |
| Com/Att | 72/122 | 61/93 | 63/109 |
| Comp % | 59% | 66% | 58% |
| Yards | 767 | 739 | 732 |
| TD | 6 | 7 | 3 |
| INT | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Record | 2-1 | 3-0 | 2-1 |
| Rush TD | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Brady’s stats are very comparable with Palmer’s through three games and are similar to Leinart’s as well to a lesser extent. Palmer got hot at the end of the season and used a shellacking of Notre Dame in the Coliseum to secure the award. Should Brady rebound and the Irish go into USC with just 1 loss, he could find himself in a similar position to Palmer.
For now however, Troy Smith is running away with the Heisman. It’s his to lose right now and unless Ohio State loses, he will most likely win the award this year. A loss to say Michigan at the end of the year however and things could even out.
This is also assuming that Quinn starts playing more like he did in 2005 and not like he did this past weekend against Michigan.
It is all about how hot you are in the last month leading up to the vote. We were Palmer’s poster child for his Heisman. Like you said, an OSU loss vs UM and a ND victory with BQ impressing could do it. He needs to compile an impressive list vs the have nots.