Remember When: Weekend Matchups Remind Us Of Past Heisman Moments

You never know when you’re going to watch a future Heisman winner in action.

Well, that’s not entirely true. When Joe Burrow took the field in the 2019 SEC Championship game, the LSU senior was finishing such a spectacular season, lifting the Heisman statue a week later was all but a foregone conclusion. But no one likes a nitpick.

So let’s turn the clock back to Sept. 3, 2016, when Burrow made his Ohio State playing debut as a redshirt freshman. He entered the game late, in mop up duty, and completed 6-of-8 passes with one touchdown in the Buckeyes’ 77-10 trouncing of Bowling Green.

OSU surely had high hopes for third-year starter J.T. Barrett, who had already finished fifth in the Heisman voting as a 2014 freshman and who passed for six scores in the win over Bowling Green. A likely Heisman contender for sure. Alas, it was not to be for Barrett, who would not crack the Heisman balloting top 10 again.

You would need crystal ball and a traveling circus’s palm reader to pick Burrow as a future Heisman winner that day. But win one eventually, in dominating fashion, he did.

Let’s look further back to Aug. 30, 1998. That’s the day a future Heisman winner and a future two-time Heisman finalist lined up against each other, one in his college debut and one making his collegiate starting debut.

These would be USC’s Carson Palmer and Purdue’s Drew Brees, who squared off — in the second half — at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum on a blistering hot season-opener.

The Trojans got the better of the Boilermakers, winning 27-17. Mike Van Raaphorst was USC’s starter that day but the Trojans’ offense was sputtering.  Head Coach Paul Hackett yanked Van Raaphorst and decided to give his potential prodigy on the bench a few series.

Enter Palmer, who led two second-half touchdown drives that day en route to the Trojans’ comeback win. His numbers were modest — 3-of-6 passing for 79 yards — but he got the job done.

For his part, Brees completed 30-of-52 passes for 248 yards with two scores and two interceptions. Fast forward two years, and Brees completed his college career as a two-time Heisman finalist, finishing fourth in 1999 and third in 2000.

Skip forward another two years and Palmer was a blossoming redshirt senior. It took him some time — and a coaching switch to Pete Carroll — to fully harness his talents, but by 2002 Palmer was leading a resurgent USC team that sat near the top of the polls. Big wins over rivals UCLA and Notre Dame clinched USC’s first Heisman in two decades.

Come this Saturday when USC and Purdue meet for the first time since that game, Brees will be in attendance in West Lafayette as he and his teammates from Purdue’s 2000 Rose Bowl team will be honored during the game.

And who knows, maybe someone in the game will take that magical step — or a nondescript one — towards a Heisman.

Let’s take a peek at other interesting matchups this week that strike memories of Heisman lore, because you never know where greatness will pop up.

As for low hanging fruit, let’s pick, er, peek at No. 3 LSU hosting Florida this week. In 2019, the aforementioned Burrow and the No. 5 Tigers hosted the No. 7 Gators in a battle of unbeatens.

Florida entered the game leading the nation in interceptions and led the SEC in sacks, but 60 minutes of play later, the Tigers totaled 511 yards without giving up a sack or a turnover. 

Burrow completed 21-of-24 passes for 293 yards with three touchdown passes — the same amount of incompletions he had — and onward marched his Heisman-winning campaign.

No. 19 Alabama hosts Wisconsin on Saturday for the third meeting between the schools a year after the Tide traveled to Madison.

The first meeting between the programs was in 2015 when a certain junior running back named Derrick Henry kicked off his Heisman season by leading No. 3 Alabama to a 35-17 win over the Badgers in the Advocare Classic inside AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Henry wasn’t an unknown commodity, having rushed for a team-best 990 yards and 11 scores as sophomore, but he took off as a junior and used the game against the Badgers as his springboard. Henry ran for 147 yards and three touchdowns, both career highs. It was one of nine times he would rush for at least 100 yards en route to Alabama’s second Heisman.

Finally, we see Pitt at West Virginia this Saturday afternoon, a matchup of unranked teams. But don’t let that fool you. It will be as intense as they come in a rivalry known as the Backyard Brawl.

In 1976, Tony Dorsett led the No. 1 Panthers — ranked first that week for the first time in 39 years — to a 24-16 win over the Mountaineers, its closest game in an unbeaten national-championship season.

Dorsett ran for 199 yards and three touchdowns, including a late fourth-quarter TD that provided a two-score cushion. 

The intensity of the game and the players’ emotions spilled out in the game’s final minute after a hard gang tackle on Dorsett. Emotions got the best of Dorsett, who was sent to the locker rom with 29 seconds left.

But his near 200-yard performances was one of the final pieces of a masterful season. Two weeks later, he became the first college player to eclipse 6,000 career yards and few days after that, the Heisman was his.