Hendon Hooker isn't Tennessee's biggest Heisman snub — and neither is Peyton Manning
The Heisman Trophy has a long history of injustice towards Tennessee football players, dating back to Johnny Majors in 1956
“It hasn’t mattered since 1997.” That’s what former Tennessee offensive lineman Trey Teague said of the Heisman Trophy after it was revealed this week that Vols quarterback Hendon Hooker isn’t one of the four finalists who will be invited to New York for the presentation of the award.
Teague, a former teammate of Peyton Manning’s, is referring to the year that Manning controversially finished second in the Heisman balloting to Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson.
And Teague isn’t wrong; 1997 was the last year that the Heisman — presented annually to college football’s “best player” — mattered to many current Tennessee fans.
But students of Tennessee football history know that the Heisman has a checkered past that far predates Manning’s snub in 1997.
In fact, Manning finishing as runner-up in ’97 isn’t even Tennessee’s biggest Heisman screw-job.
That distinction belongs to Johnny Majors, some 41 years earlier.
In 1956, Majors was the best player on an undefeated Tennessee team, and he finished second in the Heisman balloting to Paul Hornung, the best player on a dreadfully awful Notre Dame team.
Majors’ team wasn’t just far better than Hornung’s. Majors’ stats were far better, too.
Majors ran or passed for 1,101 yards and scored 12 touchdowns in 1956. He completed 61% of his passes for five touchdowns and three interceptions. He was the Vols’ return man on kickoffs and punts, the team’s punter, and also played on the defensive side of the ball as UT’s safety.
Hornung was also a do-it-all player who returned kicks, punted the ball, kicked extra points and played defense.
But Hornung’s numbers were — well, not good. He ran or passed for 1,337 yards and nine touchdowns. But he completed only 53% of his passes for three touchdowns and 13 interceptions.
And his team won only two games. When the Heisman Trophy was awarded at the end of the regular season, Tennessee was 10-0 and ranked No. 2 in the country. Notre Dame was 2-8, its only wins coming against bad Indiana and North Carolina teams that won a combined six games all season.
But Notre Dame was a media darling in those days; Hornung was the Irish’s fifth Heisman winner in 14 years.
For the record, Majors never claimed to have been snubbed. He always said the Heisman should’ve gone to Syracuse runningback Jim Brown in 1956.
Brown was black, and no black player had ever won the award. He had 986 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns that season. He finished with a total of 1,116 yards of total offense and 15 touchdowns. He led the NCAA in both rushing and rushing touchdowns that season. Syracuse finished with a record of 7-2 and was ranked No. 8 in the country.
As for Hornung, he was the first player from a team with a losing record to ever win the Heisman. He is also the only player from a team with a losing record to ever win the Heisman.
Fast-forward 41 years to 1997, when Florida quarterback Danny Wuerffel was the defending Heisman Trophy winner. There was plenty of talk about how ESPN didn’t want to see a southern quarterback win the award for a second consecutive year. And Michigan’s Woodson was everything Manning was not. He played in the Big Ten, and he was primarily a defensive player, though he also played receiver.
In 1997, Woodson became the first primarily defensive player to ever win the Heisman. He is also the only primarily defensive player to ever win the Heisman.
See a pattern? Tennessee fans do, and it’s hard to blame them.
Tennessee has had two other Heisman runner-ups — Hank Lauricella in 1951 and Heath Shuler in 1993 — but no winners.
Lauricella was the best player on a Tennessee team that won the national championship in 1951. He lost to Princeton runningback Dick Kazmaier. The Tigers went undefeated that season but finished No. 6 in the final AP voting.
(In case you’re wondering, Lauricella finished with 881 rushing yards and eight touchdowns, averaging 7.9 yards per carry. He completed 47% of his passes for 352 yards and five touchdowns, with five interceptions. Kazmaier finished with 861 rushing yards and nine touchdowns, averaging 5.8 yards per carry. He completed 63% of his passes for another 966 yards and 13 touchdowns, with five interceptions.)
There was really no question about who would win the Heisman in 1993. Florida State quarterback Charlie Ward received 740 first place votes; Shuler received just 10. Ward completed 70% of his passes for 3,032 yards, 27 touchdowns and four interceptions, and his team won a national championship. Shuler completed 64% of his passes for 2,354 yards, 25 touchdowns and eight interceptions, and Tennessee finished 12th in the final AP poll.
But just as Ward was an almost guaranteed winner in 1993, most people — at least, most Tennessee fans — thought Manning would be a guaranteed winner in 1997. He did his part, and despite a loss to Florida, the Vols were still in the national championship picture at the end of the regular season, which ended with a win over Auburn in the SEC Championship Game. But ESPN’s marketing campaign for Woodson was tough to overcome; by the end of the season, Michigan fans had heard so much Heisman hype about a guy who was on no one’s Heisman radar at the beginning of the season that they threatened to boycott the Heisman if Woodson didn’t win it.
It was viewed as a major snub, and was. Tennessee fans have referred to it as the Heistman Award ever since. ESPN commentator Chris Fowler famously called Tennessee fans “trailer park trash” for their reaction, a remark that he later apologized for.
Twenty-five years later, Tennessee fans might be outraged that the SEC’s best quarterback was left off the list of Heisman finalists in favor of the guy who is statistically the SEC’s fourth-best quarterback (Georgia’s Stetson Bennett, who didn’t make the SEC All-Conference team) … they might be outraged, but they shouldn’t be surprised. We’ve been here before — multiple times.