Oct. 21 column: Ingram aces the Heisman mid-term exam

It's not easy sorting out which player deserves the 2009 Heisman Trophy.

I'm not talking about the most deserving player across the entire nation. I'm talking strictly about the most deserving candidate on the University of Alabama team.

In the seven weeks of this season, the Alabama Crimson Tide has had a minimum of four players who would be considered their Heisman 'front-runner.' On most teams, that would be so much wasted speculation, but when a team is undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the nation, such things do matter. It is far easier for a player to win the Heisman if he plays for a team that is in the mix for the BCS title.

Before the season started, most people's answer to the question about Alabama's best Heisman hopeful would have been Julio Jones. The UA wide receiver was coming off a freshman All-America season and had garnered plenty of national attention. There were questions about whether Alabama's offense would throw the ball enough to let Jones accumulate Heisman numbers, but some rational people thought there was an outside shot.

Instead, Jones has had what is indisputably, in raw numerical terms, a sophomore slump. There are various hypotheses about the reason, enough to take up their own column. For now, it's sufficient to say that he doesn't have the statistics to garner many postseason honors. That doesn't mean he is not a great football player — just not an awards candidate this season.

Mark Ingram had a great opening game against Virginia Tech, but he also was hit in the knee and slowed for two weeks by the injury. It then became time for people to talk about a dark horse: Quarterback Greg McElroy, who was efficiently directing the Crimson Tide offense to big numbers. As recently as Sept. 30, I wrote a column about McElroy's long-shot chances and his position in the 2010 race.

By the Kentucky game, though, McElroy had started to struggle. Again, there are various reasons for the declining productivity and it may be a trend that he can reverse. But for anyone who saw that game in Lexington, it was obvious that Alabama's best player was on the other side of the football: Linebacker Rolando McClain. Defensive players don't win the Heisman, although there are usually a few 'wouldn't it be great if ...' articles written every year? McClain should walk away with the Butkus Award and any other honor that linebackers can win this season. And, yes, he deserves Heisman consideration.

But a funny thing has happened in the past four weeks. Ingram has gotten healthy again. After putting up decent, but not eye-catching, numbers against the teams you would expect to use as stat-padding cannon fodder (57 yards against FIU, 91 against North Texas, 51 against Arkansas), he has started shredding Southeastern Conference defenses. Most importantly, he has done it on national television (and I honestly think ESPN is more important than CBS in this respect, although he has been brilliant on both). And, in a curious alignment of the broadcasting universe, he had his best performance last Saturday, a day when front-runners Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow preceded him with a bad performance (in McCoy's case) and a dramatic but not entirely impressive one (Tebow). Jimmy Clausen of Notre Dame probably came within a touchdown pass of leap-frogging everyone, but on what was apparently the Heisman mid-term exam, it was Ingram who had the A-plus performance.

So, suddenly it's not Jones, or McElroy, or McClain (or Javier Arenas or Terrence Cody). It's Ingram, and he isn't just getting a nice mention here or there. He's the front-runner of this week's polling on ESPN.com and CBS Sportsline. He's not just in the mix. Almost instantly, he is on top of it.

Now, if this article proves anything, it's that Heisman love is notoriously fickle. Front-runners come and they go. But Ingram has the chance to show some traction. No voter is going to forget Tebow, and it's possible that the SEC Championship Game could, on top of everything else, be 'the decider,' as George W. Bush would call it. But Ingram will have to keep sustaining the momentum with 100-yard games against good defenses - -and with a coach and team that (rightly) values individual statistics only so far as they contribute to winning.

It might still be a long shot for a sophomore running back from Alabama to win football's most famous individual award -- but he's risen to the top of a list of talented teammates, and that is a start.

Reach Cecil Hurt at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0224.