Interesting article about 1997....

[droner]

Heistman and Fulmer's vote for National Champions.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/35181627/peyton-manning-charles-woodson-heisman-title-conspiracies

[Black Diamond Vol]

The scandal wasn’t the coaches poll voting for Nebraska, but the AP voting for Michigan. Anyone who knows anything about football knows that they wouldn’t have come within 4 TDs of Nebraska that year.

[BanditVol]

The scandal wasn’t the coaches poll voting for Nebraska, but the AP voting for Michigan. Anyone who knows anything about football knows that they wouldn’t have come within 4 TDs of Nebraska that year.

Yeah, but they used to do that on purpose

What  lot of people dont realize or forget is that we had a legit shot that year in spite of losing to Florida.  Had we beaten Nebraska and ASU beaten Michigan, we likely split it with ASU.

Since  we got baby seal clubbed by Nebraska it didn't matter what ASU did 

I think we won it in 1998, but the second closest was 1997.  People give Peyton shizzle for never winning an NC, but it was actually possible that year and we did play for it as well as you could in the pre-BCS era, which I believe was the Bowl Alliance that the P-12, B-10, and Rose Bowl sat out of. 

Then the third closest was 2001...DOT!   

and if not for losing to Mempiss, maybe 1996, but really the only one we can claim to have actually played for was 1997.  2001 was like a semifinal though.

[FLVOL]

The scandal wasn’t the coaches poll voting for Nebraska, but the AP voting for Michigan. Anyone who knows anything about football knows that they wouldn’t have come within 4 TDs of Nebraska that year.

Nebraska was 10 x's the team as UM was, it wasn't even close. Their O-line was a freaking bulldozer and their run game couldn't be stopped.

[BanditVol]

Read the article

I don't get why splitting the vote was such a big deal.  They won the coaches poll, who GAS if there is a co-champ?  Had Tennesssee somehow upset Nebraska I could have cared less about splitting with ASU

Also, Peyton probably should have sat out that game. Who knows, maybe Tee would have pleasantly surprised everyone like he did at the end of the game.  Having said that, Nebraska likely had in the second string and it was garbage time, but Peyton almost certainly was not 100% in that game.

Anyway, good memories.

Oh and lest I forget, it was definitely deliberate by ABC and ESPN.  I recall an article that came out in January of that year from the AP, it stated that ABS Sports was in the red for the year but the Rose Bowl did really well and put them back in the black.  They had a huge financial incentive to have the Heisman trophy winner be in the Rose Bowl to help promote it. I have looked for that article a few times but I think it long ago fell off the web.  Maybe one day I can find it.   

[Creek Walker]

Let's say Fulmer switched his vote after the Orange Bowl. Would that have been because he wanted to grind an axe over Manning being snubbed, or because Nebraska made him a believer with the beatdown they put on his team? As y'all have already pointed out, Nebraska was a far better team than Michigan (despite what Lloyd Carr says). That's a pretty weak conspiracy theory.

Manning's Heisman snub was real, though, and the conspiracy theory that ESPN pushed Woodson into the award was pretty easy to substantiate. If you go back four years earlier, it had been a foregone conclusion that Charlie Ward would win the Heisman. He was the front-runner all season, and he won it in a landslide over Shuler and David Palmer. The '95 and '96 balloting had been extremely close. But here comes the '97 season, and not only does Manning enter the season as the overwhelming favorite to win the award, but if he won it then it would mean that an SEC quarterback had won it for two straight years. I believe that, more than anything else, ESPN wanted to create some hype and not have a 1993 redux. They didn't necessarily intend for Woodson to win the award; they just needed a player to prop up against Manning, and Woodson was the anti-Manning — Midwestern instead of Southern, Big Ten instead of SEC, defense instead of offense, etc. — so he became the logical choice. But the thing snowballed and Woodson won it. Maybe ironically, Randy Moss or even Ryan Leaf were stronger candidates than Woodson and would've had more of a legitimate claim to win the award.

But as bad as it was, Manning's snub in '97 wasn't the biggest snub of a Tennessee player. That was Majors in '56. Paul Hornung not only played for a 2-8 Notre Dame team, but he had 3 touchdowns vs. 13 interceptions — and won the Heisman. 

[BanditVol]

Let's say Fulmer switched his vote after the Orange Bowl. Would that have been because he wanted to grind an axe over Manning being snubbed, or because Nebraska made him a believer with the beatdown they put on his team? As y'all have already pointed out, Nebraska was a far better team than Michigan (despite what Lloyd Carr says). That's a pretty weak conspiracy theory.

Manning's Heisman snub was real, though, and the conspiracy theory that ESPN pushed Woodson into the award was pretty easy to substantiate. If you go back four years earlier, it had been a foregone conclusion that Charlie Ward would win the Heisman. He was the front-runner all season, and he won it in a landslide over Shuler and David Palmer. The '95 and '96 balloting had been extremely close. But here comes the '97 season, and not only does Manning enter the season as the overwhelming favorite to win the award, but if he won it then it would mean that an SEC quarterback had won it for two straight years. I believe that, more than anything else, ESPN wanted to create some hype and not have a 1993 redux. They didn't necessarily intend for Woodson to win the award; they just needed a player to prop up against Manning, and Woodson was the anti-Manning — Midwestern instead of Southern, Big Ten instead of SEC, defense instead of offense, etc. — so he became the logical choice. But the thing snowballed and Woodson won it. Maybe ironically, Randy Moss or even Ryan Leaf were stronger candidates than Woodson and would've had more of a legitimate claim to win the award.

But as bad as it was, Manning's snub in '97 wasn't the biggest snub of a Tennessee player. That was Majors in '56. Paul Hornung not only played for a 2-8 Notre Dame team, but he had 3 touchdowns vs. 13 interceptions — and won the Heisman. 

That is pretty bad about Hornung.  On the other hand, he did go on to an HOF career in the NFL and won multiple NFL championships, and even the first two Super Bowls. But I know its a college award lol.