After a few weeks of narrowing the field of candidates down to a Final Four (we had two nominating votes to end in a tie), we finally have a winner of the first ever, but someday to be coveted, POTY AWARD.  The process was grueling.  Rather than follow the time honored Chicago maxim “Vote early and vote often”, our panel came up with their own, “Vote late and vote maybe.”

Mark Ingram and CJ Spiller made it through the first round, but were quickly dispatched in Round 2. Ingram, mostly because of a bad showing against Auburn and Spiller a victim of a dominating games by others and his own team’s lack of national TV exposure. After Ingram’s performance in the Massacre in Atlanta, we had four voters want to write in his name, even after taking him off of their ballot following the Iron Bowl. But, rules are rules, mostly. In the end, we had four very fine finalists and the vote went like this:

Suh         23

Gerhart  21

McClain  16

Keenum    5

Ronald Martinex/Getty Images

So, the winner is one badass defensive lineman. Ndamukong Suh terrorized Big 12 offenses and even caught his own TD pass this year. Suh is a projected 1 or 2 draft choice. He is credited with 70 tackles – 16 for a loss. He is said to have 7.5 sacks. I’ve heard of 3 balls, but 7.5 sacks? Maybe he takes them from the near lifeless bodies of QBs.  That is one badass DL. Suh is also the Lombardi, Bednarik and Nagurski Award winner. While that may pale in the face of The POTY, it is still a very substantial accomplishment. One NFL Draft analyst said of Suh, “…will help put an end to this damn spread crap in the NFL, he needs to put on weight, but with quickness he will occupy linemen and allow the LB’s to hammer teams using variations of the spread. Look for him to go to a team that runs a 3-4. This kid should go first in the draft……most likely will”

Our second place guy, Toby Gerhart, got the most votes for first place with 4, but was left off of one ballot entirely, while Suh appeared on all.  Third place Rolando McClain tied with Suh , with 3 first place votes, but was left off of two ballots.  Also ran Case Keenum only appeared on two final votes, with a 1st and a 2nd.

While his play has been consistently dominating for three years, Suh’s complete control over the Texas offensive line and the fact that he made Colt McCoy his personal bitch,sealed the honor for him this year.

We at the College Football Voice are proud to have Ndamukong Suh as the first ever winner of The POTY. This is an outstanding choice for our inaugural award, in our own inaugural season. To have two of the finalists be from the defensive side of the ball, with only one quarterback as a finalist, demonstrates that popularity and a good PR department had no sway over our panel’s decision. In fact, we had only one voter who feared for his family enough to vote for Tim Tebow and only a couple to vote for Colt McCoy, in the first round. To add to that, there are no fans of Big 12 teams on the panel, so Suh was rewarded by football fans who watch a wide variety of college games.

Congratulations # 93.

When we can think of an appropriate award, we will send it along. We promise it will be better, if not as costly, as that $19.99 Fossil watch that all of the bowls are giving out.

Above: Suh ripping a testicle from Todd Reesing's body

Tags: Bowl Championship Series, Case Keenum, College Football, College Football News, NCAA Football, Ndamukong Suh, POTY, Rolando McClain, Tim Tebow, Toby Gerhart

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Authors Blogs, Creek's Crystal Sphere. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.