Dr. Saturday Talks About Woodson vs Manning
Not very relevant since we all know Woodson won the Heisman that year fair and square, but interesting nonetheless.
Peyton Manning didn't win the Heisman Trophy because he tanked the biggest game of the season for the third year in a row. Woodson's defining moment was a spectacular play against a highly-ranked, hated rival that helped propel his team on to a national championship; Manning's was an ugly pick-six against a highly-ranked, hated rival that helped cost his team a national championship. Cold case closed.
Well said.
memories of my life was that one handed INT against MSU. Woodson is without one of the greatest football players of all time. Hopefully we will start getting some lock down corners like him in the next few years. Those defenses when Woodson played were just straight up nasty!!
but I do have this recollection of Charles jumping up and bringing down the Goodyear Blimp with one hand. He came down in bounds to boot.
Hopefully we will start getting some lock down corners like him in the next few years.
"He" is one of three University of Michigan players to ever win the Heisman in the history of the award. How many of these players do you think Michigan will get in the next few years? Sorry, but just isn't possible for any team to recruit multiple Heisman winners to play the corner over any period of a "few years."
Players like Charles Woodson don't grow on trees.
I was sitting in the alumni section surrounded by green and white with a friend (msu grad) for that game. I was all dressed in maize and blue. The interception occured right down in front of me, I jumped up yelling GO BLUE and proceeded to get pummeled by sparty fans garbage!
get shit from a couple of long-standing TN customers, and every time I make the same point - players make plays.
They counter that Manning won a Super Bowl. I counter that with "it was the Bears, in a pouring rain. In other words- cripfight".
Woodson has also won a Super Bowl now. His only point in the argument is gone now.
You could also counter by pointing out that Heisman's are for actual performance during a college season, not prognosticated performance at the professional level.
has more Superbowl rings than ALL THREE of the Mannings combined. That usually shuts them up.
But that doesn't really have much to do with the Woodson-Manning debate, does it?
If the measure of a Heisman winner is superbowl rings, then how many Heisman's should Tom Brady have won?
We need a moderation tag for yuck.
I like Cheetos, but not that much.
If you go back and look at that season, Manning always fell a little short against the best teams on the schedule, particularly Florida and Nebraska. I've heard people say that it is a team game and those Vol teams let him down, but Woodson found a way to shut down half the field on every defensive snap and provide some nice offensive production by way of end-arounds and punt/kickoff returns. He did everything you could ask of a player to help his team win, and frankly Manning never did at the biggest moments. That said, they probably both deserved Heismans for their college careers, certainly moreso than guys like Dayne and Weinke.
here that Dr. Saturday links to. This is just Tennessee bitterness with no argument. Peyton deserved it, so ESPN must have been Woodson's king-maker. But the worst logic fail (which I tried to point out in the comments but the author didn't seem to understand his mistake) is that the Heisman is an award granted by the media. The idea that somehow ESPN tainted the award is absurd. It's an award about perception. That much is obvious, or #2 wouldn't be the only defensive player to hold the trophy. And that only strengthens the argument that Woodson deserved the Heisman.
Alright since I've heard it here roughly a billion times let me give you the ESPN argument as explained by every Vol fan and even local sports talk hosts. ESPN and ABC cover Big Ten sports, so they conspired to get Woodson the trophy over Manning by showing more of Woodson in their highlights. They played Charles up and showed less highlights of Manning or highlights that weren't flattering to him (never mind the FACT that Woodson was simply the SUPERIOR player). You cannot under any circumstances discuss this in a reasonable manner with any Vol fan.
Their argument being Peyton Manning deserved the Heisman trophy for coming back to UT for his senior season ,period, end of story. Manning walked on water, cured cancer and aids, and is the best thing since sliced bread. Telling the UT fans he simply choked in his two biggest games and was the 2nd or 3rd best player in the country could possibly get you shot in this state. They will never ever, ever, ever...you get the point, get over it. I just knowingly say Woodson was better and shut down all the arguments with I've heard it before you're wrong and there is nothing more to discuss. Tenn. is a really nice place to live most of the time but whenever someone hears I am from Michigan...it starts.
for a fan base to have. I mean, it is awesome that Woodson won the Heisman, but I am more impressed with the undefeated season and the NC than the Heisman. I'd rather be Vince Young than Reggie Bush, and I never understood why Vince was so slighted that he didn't win the Heisman. Football is about what happens between the lines... the awards are nice but I think that they are not so important. And for years the Heisman seemed like a consolation prize for a great college player that wasn't going to do well in the NFL (Gino Torretta???)...
Transplanted in TN as well and I get it all the time when wearing my Michigan gear. I don't even bother arguing with SEC fan anymore...much less UT. Manning would be governor of the state in a landslide if he wanted to, and I can't tell you how many kids are named after him here, boys and girls.
Vanderbilt is a reputable school, and being in Nashville I get to follow them a bit...but academically they belong in a conference like the B1G. They're very out of place in SEC country.
One other thing about Tenn fans is that they've had an ax to grind with Heisman voters for a long time. Back in the '50s, Johnny Majors got jobbed, finishing second to Paul Hornung even though ND was awful that year. Majors was the better player but didn't have the same national publicity.
Then in the early '90s, Heath Shuler was an excellent QB, but lost out to Geno Torretta. Shuler wasn't necessarily the best candidate, but you could make a case that he was better than Torretta, but Torretta had the prestige of being on the #1 team working for him.
So by the time Manning came around, UT fans had this history of falling short in the Heisman race and were hungry for a winner. Manning was the preseason favorite in '96 and faltered, losing to a Florida player no less. When he came back in '97 and was again the preseason favorite, they were certain their long wait would end. They would have hated anyone who beat out Manning. It happened to be Woodson.
Never won a high school championship (34-5 career in HS; 3 state championship losses)
Never won a SEC Championship
Never beat Florida
NFL playoff record below .500
Passer rating of 70.5 during Indy's SB run in 2006
Verdict: Peyton Manning is arguably the best regular season quarterback in the history of the world. He's a great player in week 7 at home against Jacksonville, but has consistently come up short in big games throughout his entire career. This wasn't any different during his senior year while Woodson made big play after big play in every big game we had that season.
Because Florida choked and lost two games after beating him.
u mad?
Woodson was amazing. He made unbelievable plays, he scored touchdowns three ways, he was the unquestioned leader of one of the best defenses in college football history, and he won a national championship.
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<br>Oh, and Woodson completed 100% of his passes in 1997.
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<br>Manning had a big forehead and an asshole coach who didn't put undefeated Michigan in the top 3 because his qb got whooped by Nebraska in the orange bowl.
"James Hall once again applying the pressure. And once again, Schultz is trying to throw the ball away. He has no idea that Charles Woodson can jump 15 feet in the air, come down, acrobatically, get his foot inside this football field.
"Folks, you can watch football a long, long time before you see another play like that."
Definitely one of my top 3 football plays of all time. There were a couple of runs by Barry, one against the Vikings where he was surrounded by 4 of 'em and left them falling over themselves doin' the pincher bug motion in thin air.
"Tony" may be the stupidest human being alive.
I LOVE this shit. It's so awesome that our guy triumphed in a Heisman race that still gets people talking today as opposed to the parade of dull, unmemorable winners that have followed since.
Fowler saying he voted for Manning is funny too. He really is a schmuck.
Woodson is one of the players that truly deserved to win the Heisman. Doc is right, Woodson showed up and played his best when his team needed it most, that's greatness. Too many times the best player gets passed over for a player at a flashier position. IMO Ndamukong Suh was the best player in college football his senior season and I really don't think it was that close. But it's very difficult to get the votes when you aren't at a flashy position.
Colts fan, but good lord, Charles was by far the best player that year on the best team and the best defense in the land. He played both ways and excelled on special teams. I would never downplay Peyton Manning because he will go down as one of the all time greats, but 1997 was Charles' year, period.
that Woodson is taller than he is. He always felt like 6'3 for some reason. Maybe it was the unreal catch against MSU or his larger than life personality, but I'm always suprised when I reealise he's only 6'1.
Anyone who wonders how Woodson won the Heisman need only watch the 97 OSU/UM game again. It was more than 'one play' as Dr. Saturday suggests. Woodson dominated that game in a way that seemed unpossible for a DB.
The Heisman voters rightfully put a lot of weight on perfomance in big games--otherwise, the winner may just be a guy who beat up on cupcakes. Woodson won the 97 OSU game. Manning repeatedly lost on the biggest stage. Maybe that's not Manning's fault but it certainly isn't to his credit.
I love the fact that Charles Woodson won that Heisman. He was the best college football player in America. He was by far the most interesting college football player in America. A two-way player, an unbelieveable all-around player, even on special teams. A kid who had played hard, and well, from the time he put on the winged helmet.
That's what the Heisman is all about; that is what it is supposed to be all about.
Peyton Manning, in college at Tennessee, was the best future All-Pro. Peyton Manning was the best potential NFL draft pick. Those are NOT the qualities that the Heisman measures. I like Peyton Manning; he didn't ever deserve to win the Heisman.
I say all of that without regard for team rivalries. I'd like to think that I'd feel the same way if the players and teams were reversed. I just like the Heisman as an award that consciously disregards "NFL draft potential."
In fact, all of these same arguments could easily be made, to make a claim that Michigan should have one more Heisman winner. Because Bob Chappuis finished second in the 1947 Heisman voting to Johnny Lujack, who was obviously a great player, but who probably got the votes that he did based on a very good publicity campaign and the presumption that he would be a future NFL star.
http://www.heisman.com/winners/j-lujack47.php
One hell of a Heisman class, too; Lujack, Chappuis, Doak Walker, Charley Conerly and Bobby Layne were all in that class. In the Midwest region of voting, where Chappuis and Lujack both played, Chappuis was the voting winner.
I'm glad you don't see many quotes like this about us.
"I was across a chain-link fence at the Orange Bowl from Tennessee fans a month later, and it was really, really edgy; very difficult and uncomfortable. And it stayed that way for a while. We didn't go back to Knoxville with GameDay for a few years, and when we did, we paid attention to security."
Michigan fans are definitely relatively civilized.
We're just drama queens who whine like bitches.
I'm not sure why you're getting down-modded. The Michigan fanbase absolutely can be whiny drama queens. It's kind of a logical flip side to the Michigan arrogance we all enjoy so much.
That's what it basically comes down to...and what Vols fans continue to ignore. Had Manning destroyed Florida, the outcome might have been different. But once again, he laid an egg in the biggest game of the year. When you do that, you don't deserve the Heisman trophy.
Manning's moral victory was the love from the media. Because anyone who watched the Heisman presentation in 97 (the same day the hockey team beat Boston College in OT and the basektaball team beat #1 Duke for the third straight year --- what a great day!) will remember is that the majority of the show was a Peyton lovefest. Unlike Woodson, Leaf and Moss, Manning's feature showed interviews with his high school coach and several home movies of him throwing a football. The whole special was so lopsided in his favor that I wondered if there was even a point to continue watching.
Glad I hung in there.
Well, the media's votes DID give Woodson the trophy, so I wouldn't say that.
You're right about the presentation show. It was clearly slanted toward Manning.