(UHND.com) – Last year Brady Quinn finished fourth in the Heisman voting and did not get an invitation to the Downtown Athletic Club to join Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, and Vince Young . This year, however, Quinn will be in New York for the Heisman presentation along with Ohio State’s Troy Smith and Arkansas’s Darren McFadden.
This year’s presentation should really be called the Troy Smith Heisman presentation, since it was decided in the media months ago that Smith would be this year’s winner, but having Quinn invited to New York is still quite an accomplishment for Notre Dame’s all time leading passer.
Quinn will be the first Notre Dame player at a Heisman presentation since Rocket Ismail back in 1990. Ismail, arguably one of the most electrifying players in college football history, lost the award to Ty Detmer who put up some gaudy stats playing for BYU.
Despite starting the season as one of the clear favorites for the award, Quinn dropped to the back of most voters’ minds after the humbling 47-21 home loss to Michigan in the third week of the season. Quinn went on to put some very impressive numbers the rest of the season, but nothing he did seemed to get him back in the fore front of the race along with Smith.
The third finalist, Darren McFadden, had a great stretch run and was the spark that ignited the Arkansas offense during their drive to the SEC Title game. McFadden did a little bit of everything for the Razorbacks and has set himself up nicely as the front runner for next year’s race with his impressive performance over the last couple months of the season.
Even though Quinn is a long shot to take home the Heisman, being in New York for the presentation is great exposure for Notre Dame considering the last time the Irish had a finalists this year’s recruiting class was barely born.
