The Wake-Up Call greets you each weekday with news, views and a few Tampa Bay area sports offerings to anticipate for the day and night. We encourage suggestions and contributions.
Good morning!
When the college football season began, one thing seemed certain.
The Heisman Trophy would be won by a quarterback - either Oklahoma's Sam Bradford, Texas' Colt McCoy or Florida's Tim Tebow, the 1-2-3 finishers from 2008 - and it seemed the closest thing to a mortal lock.
Heisman votes are due this afternoon.
With all precincts reporting, with all games completed after a fast-and-furious Saturday, I now think the 75th Heisman Trophy should go to a running back.
My top three in alphabetical order:
Stanford RB Toby Gerhart, senior - Rushed for 1,736 yards (5.6-yard average) and 26 touchdowns, leading the nation in both categories, while catching 10 passes. His best moment came against Notre Dame - 29 rushes for 205 yards and three touchdowns, while throwing an option pass for another TD.
He has rushed for 100 yards or more 10 times - including three games that surpassed 200 yards.
Stanford is 8-4 and headed to the Sun Bowl.
Alabama RB Mark Ingram, sophomore - Rushed for 1,542 yards (5.6-yard average) and 15 touchdowns, while catching 30 passes. He had 115 rushing yards and three touchdowns in Saturday's 32-13 defeat of top-ranked Florida in the SEC Championship Game. It was Ingram's eighth 100-yard game this season.
Incredibly, Alabama's program has never had a Heisman Trophy winner.
Alabama is 13-0 and headed to the BCS Championship Game.
Clemson RB C.J. Spiller, senior - Rushed for 1,145 yards (5.7-yard average) and 11 touchdowns, while catching 33 passes and serving as Clemson's primary kick returner. He's the only player in the nation to score a touchdown in every game this season. He had arguably the best game of his career - 20 carries for 233 yards and four touchdowns, plus a 54-yard run to set up a fifth touchdown - in Saturday night's 39-34 loss to Georgia Tech at the ACC Championship Game.
Overall, Spiller has 7,416 career all-purpose yards, third all-time in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Clemson is 8-5 and headed to the Music City Bowl.
Gerhart, Ingram and Spiller.
Ingram, Spiller and Gerhart.
Spiller, Gerhart and Ingram.
The order keeps changing, keeps flipping, perhaps because any one of them is very deserving.
So what happened to the quarterbacks?
Well, Bradford got hurt. McCoy and Tebow certainly had their moments - and no two players received more national exposure - but it falls a bit short in my mind.
You could make a case that Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh - wouldn't he look good in red-and-pewter? - deserves to be considered before the quarterbacks.
Look, practically everybody gets an award in college football. Almost everyone on all youth sports teams walks away with a trophy.
The Heisman is different. It's tradition. It's Americana. It's the original.
It's the one to be debated all year. It's the one that makes us stop and notice when the award-winning moment arrives. It's the one supposedly driven by a simple standard - "most outstanding player in the nation'' - and everyone's interpretation of that.
Five days until Heisman time.
Exceptionally tough call, but here's my ballot:
1. Toby Gerhart, Stanford.
2. Mark Ingram, Alabama.
3. C.J. Spiller, Clemson.
ACC pleased with Tampa's performance
Saturday night's ACC Championship Game - Georgia Tech 39, Clemson 34 - was a memorable show at Raymond James Stadium. The enduring memory, of course, is Clemson senior running back C.J.
Spiller, the game's Most Valuable Player, who rushed for 233 yards and four touchdowns, while finishing with 301 all-purpose yards.
The game attracted actual attendance of 44,897. ACC associate commissioner for football operations Michael Kelly called it "an obvious uptick from what happened last year.''
The 2008 game (Virginia Tech-Boston College) drew an actual attendance of 27,360 and the participating teams sold only 3,000 of their 20,000-ticke allotment.
"I saw a lot of orange (Clemson colors) and a lot of gold (Georgia Tech colors),'' Kelly said. "It showed well on TV and things went well in the community. It was a good matchup and the fan base was energized.
"Either way, our goal was to put on a first-class show and keep growing this thing, even in its infancy (the ACC Championship Game began in 2005). The lead-up weather (cool and rainy) put a specter of doubt out there, but the fans turned out and seemed to have a great time.''
Now the ACC game moves to Charlotte, N.C., where 75 percent of the conference membership is within a six-hour drive, for a two-year stint.
Wouldn't it be ironic if Florida State-Miami becomes the title-game matchup in 2010 after the game leaves Florida?
"If that happens,'' Kelly said, "we need to make sure we put on the best show possible and hope the local fans support it. As we move forward, that's always the goal. We have great relationships in Tampa and we're pleased with how hard everybody worked to make our game a success.''
Gators meet Penn State in volleyball
With the NCAA Volleyball Final Four set for Dec. 17 and 19 at the St. Pete Times Forum in downtown Tampa, there's a fascinating matchup brewing this week in Gainesville.
The No. 16-seeded University of Florida Gators (25-5) meet the No. 1 Penn State Nittany Lions (34-0) in Friday's NCAA region volleyball semifinals at the O'Connell Center. Penn State has won 98 straight matches - you read that correctly - and if the Nittany Lions pull through the regionals, they will roll into Tampa with 100 consecutive victories.
After the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, there was only one upset of note - Colorado State (25-5) defeated No. 6 Washington (24-6) in four games.
Here are the Sweet 16 pairings for Friday and Saturday (with Saturday's region finals scheduled for ESPNU telecasts):
Gainesville Regional
No. 1 Penn State (34-0) vs. No. 16 Florida (25-5)
No. 9 California (20-0) vs. Baylor (24-9)
Stanford Regional
No. 5 Illinois (26-5) vs. No. 12 Hawaii (29-2)
No. 4 Stanford (23-7) vs. No. 13 Michigan (26-9)
Minneapolis Regional
No. 3 Florida State (30-2) vs. Kentucky (29-4)
No. 11 Minnesota (26-8) vs. Colorado State (25-5)
Omaha Regional
No. 7 Iowa State (27-4) vs. No. 10 Nebraska (25-6)
No. 2 Texas (26-1) vs. Texas A&M (20-10)
No Bull: Once, he wanted USF
Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson, a product of Orlando Olympia High School and East Carolina University, continued his amazing run on Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts. Johnson, who has played just 27 NFL games, rushed for 113 yards, although the Titans fell to the Colts 27-17.
It was his eighth straight 100-yard rushing game, setting a franchise record (and this is a franchise that once had Earl Campbell and Eddie George).
He has 1,510 yards through 12 games - and he's almost on pace to break Eric Dickerson's single-season record of 2,105 yards (1984).
There is one more amazing fact about Johnson, 5-foot-11 and 200 pounds.
During his 2003 senior season at Olympia, when he missed seven games due to a broken leg, his most fervent wish was to sign with the University of South Florida Bulls.
His high school coach, Mike Cullison, said USF wasn't interested.
"Chris was dying to go to USF,'' Cullison told the Orlando Sentinel's Chris Harry. "I begged them to take him - please - but they wanted nothing to do with him. Well, it wasn't long before they were kicking themselves in the (behind).''
Johnson had an extraordinarily productive career at ECU (6,993 all-purpose yards, sixth all-time in the Football Bowl Subdivision) and ran a 4.24 40-yard dash at the NFL combine. The Titans made him the 24th overall pick in 2008.
And the rest is football history.
Without USF being a part of it.
Huge game for Murphy
Oakland Raiders rookie wide receiver Louis Murphy (Lakewood) had his best NFL game on Sunday in a 27-24 win against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Murphy had four receptions for 128 yards and two touchdowns, including the game-winning 11-yarder with nine seconds remaining.
Earlier in the fourth quarter, Murphy had a 75-yard TD reception to put Oakland ahead 20-17, part of a back-and-forth flurry that saw five go-ahead scores in the final stanza.
Raiders quarterback Bruce Gradkowski, the former Buc who was returning to his hometown, completed 20 of 33 passes for 308 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.
Birthday wishes
Happy birthday to former New York Yankees first baseman Tino Martinez, the Jefferson High School product who became an All-American at the University of Tampa. Martinez was part of four World Series championship teams with the Yankees. Today, he turns 42.
The Answer Man
Here's the answer to Friday's trivia question:
Jeff Mitchell is the former Countryside High School football player who was part of a national-championship team in college (1996 Florida Gators) and a Super Bowl-winning team in the NFL (2000 Baltimore Ravens, winning Super Bowl XXXV at Raymond James Stadium).
Monday trivia
Here's our daily sports trivia question, featuring a Tampa Bay/Florida spin. Try your luck by commenting below.
Six products of Tampa Bay area high schools finished in the top 10 of Heisman Trophy balloting (no winners, though). We'll cut you a break. Can you name three of them?
Check for the answer in Tuesday's Wake-Up Call.
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