Heisman Trophy - University Success

University Success

In addition to personal statistics, team achievements play a heavy role in the voting – a typical Heisman winner represents a team that had an outstanding season and was most likely in contention for the national championship or a major conference championship at some point in that season. Although the University of Chicago abandoned football for a long time, and is now a Division III school, and Yale and Princeton are now Division I FCS, all three schools were considered major football programs at the time their players won the award.

The closest that a player outside the modern Division I FBS came to winning the Heisman is third place; in both cases, the players involved played for schools in what was at the time Division I-AA, now Division I FCS. The first was Gordie Lockbaum from Holy Cross in 1987, followed by Steve McNair, from Alcorn State in 1993. Armanti Edwards, from Appalachian State University, was also briefly mentioned as a candidate for the award following Appalachian's upset of then #5-ranked Michigan in 2007.

Besides Griffin winning consecutive Heismans at Ohio State, three other programs had two different players win the Heisman Trophy in consecutive years: Yale (1936–37), Army (1945–46), and Southern California (USC) (2004–05, though Reggie Bush voluntarily forfeited his 2005 award in September 2010 and sent the trophy back to the Heisman Trust). With an earlier win in 2002, the USC program actually had three different winners within four years.

Only two high schools have produced multiple Heisman trophy winners: Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, Texas (1938 and 1987) and Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California (1964 and 2004).

Of the colleges where trophy namesake John Heisman coached, only Auburn University has produced any Heisman winners, with Pat Sullivan in 1972, Bo Jackson in 1985 and Cam Newton in 2010.