Toby Gerhart, 2009 Fantasy College Player of the Year (thanks Icon SMI)

The Heisman Trophy was handed out last week in what turned out to be the closest voting in the history of the award.  As everyone knows, Alabama’s Mark Ingram won the award barely beating out Toby Gerhart of Stanford.  It is funny that everyone in America would agree that Gerhart had a better season than Ingram but because Alabama has a better defense than Stanford, Ingram gets the Heisman.  The Heisman is an award given to the Most Valuable Players as they claim, but to the most valuable player who plays for a Top 10 team.  As the saying goes, ‘It is what it is’ and based on the criteria used for determining the Heisman, Ingram is worthy.

This brings me to an award that is much more relevant to us fantasy players and that is the Fantasy Player of the Year for college football.  Unlike the Heisman we are not bound by picking great performances from only a select few big schools.  The winner of the award last year would have been Chase Clement from Rice in a landslide although he got no mention in the Heisman voting.  I wrote an article last week that broke down my rationale for my voting that you can find here.

This year for the first time, Fantasy College Blitz help organize a real voting process similar to the Heisman to crown the winner of the Fantasy Player of the Year.  We gathered votes from 22 fantasy football writers from many of the major players to compile the results in the same fashion as the Heisman.  1st place votes is worth 3points, 2nd place votes is worth 2points and 3rd place votes are worth 1point.  Mark Ingram only received one vote and that was a 3rd place vote.  Tim Tebow and Colt McCoy were left off the ballot of all voters.  And now, the final results…

Gerhart won the award fairly easily by netting nine 1st place votes and eight 2nd place votes and was on the ballot of 21 of 22 writers.  Keenum garnered a lot of love as well, receiving six 1st votes and eight 2nd place votes but was hurt by being left off the ballot by 6 of the 22 writers.  No one else came close to making a serious push as every other player showed up on less than half the ballots.  Barnes got four 1st place votes and one 2nd place vote but was left off the ballot completely by 13 voters.  And with all voting, someone has to throw in a sentimental vote which I am assuming is the Mike Kafka vote.

On behalf of Fantasy College Blitz and all of the people who participated in the voting, we would like to congratulate once again, Toby Gerhart, 2009 Fantasy College Player of the Year.

Related posts:

1. Projecting the Fantasy Player of the Year
2. Ingram Leads Final HeismanPundit.com Heisman Poll
3. Ingram Takes The Lead In Latest HeismanPundit.com Heisman Poll
4. Coffee is for closers: Heisman should go to Gerhart
5. 2009 PAC 10 ALL-FANTASY TEAM