Williams finishes 4th in Heisman

Andre Williams finished fourth in the 2013 Heisman voting. As expected Florida State Quarterback Jameis Winston won in a landslide. Williams deserves our thanks for an incredible and memorable season and for representing BC so well in this process.

Don't forget about Dre: Andre Williams belongs among the Heisman Finalists

Of late the Heisman has had two sorts of winners. The first is the MVP of one of the top rated teams. This year that would be Winston or McCarron. Or it goes to a once in a lifetime QB talent who captures the media's imagination late in the season (think "Johnny Football" or RGIII). Running backs from unranked teams haven't come close to the award in years. Might I suggest a change this year because Andre Williams deserves to be invited to New York and depending on how the season plays out, may deserve the Trophy.

Saturday's NC State game was just the latest in Williams' record-shattering season. He ran for 339 yards and that was just a week after running for 295 yards. This is insane. And it is not like he's just breaking off big runs without getting touched or part of some high-powered offense. He is the offense. Each week the opposing defense keys their whole scheme around him and Williams just runs people over. BC has repeatedly faced nine and at times ten guys in the box. It doesn't matter. Williams will grind it out for a few plays and then you know a big one is coming.

The BC offensive line also deserves credit for Williams' performance, but they can only do so much. Williams is the one breaking tackles and running over and away from defenders on the second and third level.

Heisman voters are a fickle bunch. You never know who is going to gain the consensus late. But Williams has earned his spot and if his season continues like this, he is going to run over anyone who doubts him.

Johnny Manziel has good taste

"This is a moment that I've dreamed about since I've been a kid running around the backyard pretending I was Doug Flutie throwing Hail Marys to my dad."


Johnny Manziel was born in 1992. Yet the Texan knew enough to pretend to be Doug Flutie. Regardless of who coaches BC, we need to keep selling the Flutie Hail Mary to potential QBs because this is proof that even 28 years later, they are already dreaming about it.

Heisman up for grabs

With no front runner to back, Heisman attention is now shifting to Matt Ryan. I know some bigger things are in the works but here are a few links to review.

Sportsline has Ryan at the front of the pack.

SI has BC as a team to watch and slots Ryan as fourth on the Heisman watch.

The Ryan for Heisman guys found some good video from Saturday.

As for bloggers, the Big Lead likes Ryan more than the Heisman Pundit.

In my opinion this is good, but still very premature. For Ryan to get the award BC needs to get to the ACC Championship game and he needs to play flawlessly down the stretch.

Fenway news and Ryan diss

BC and the Red Sox sports marketing arm the Fenway Sports Group announced an extension of their current agreement. The new deal continues the relationship for another 12 years and beefs up BC’s account team. No one has disclosed the amount of revenue generated by the new deal but I imagine both parties must be pretty excited to agree to something of this length. In my interview with Steve Novak I sent him a question trying to gauge how the BC fund money compared to other sources of revenue. Obviously he did not share (not that I blame him…there are benefits of being a private university). For this to make sense for the Red Sox I would guess that they are generating multi-millions. And for BC you would have to assume they are generating more money than they did independently. So assume it is very good for everyone involved.

In other news…

Reader Steve E. and a few people on the message boards were pissed when Matt Ryan was lumped in with the rest of the ACC QBs and dismissed as nothing special by ESPN's Pat Forde. This is consistent with Ryan not getting much preseason Heisman attention from any of the major sites or publications. I am not too upset. At this point it doesn’t matter. The Heisman has morphed into an MVP award for the No. 1 team, so it is a long shot for Matty. I also think he'll prove enough this season and make all ACC again and has a very good shot at being Second or Third team All America.