CHAPTER FIVE

THE GREATEST RACE

THE T-SHIRT WAS the work of Norfolk, Virginia, entrepreneurs Dave Bushnell and Fred Kirsch, a simple design with an image of Georgia’s Herschel Walker striking the iconic Heisman Trophy pose. Underneath the running back, it said “Who Else?”

Who else?

Answering that question can serve as rationalization as to how Walker had been denied the award as a freshman in 1980. Despite rushing for 1,616 yards and 15 touchdowns and leading the Bulldogs to a national championship, Who else? was a case study in the most notorious instance of voters being unwilling to get behind a player because of his age.

For all his brilliance, Walker came in third at 445 points behind the winner, South Carolina running back George Rogers, and trailed Pitt defensive end Hugh Green by 178. The sense around Athens, Georgia—and subsequently the whole of the college football universe—was that Who else? could no longer be an excuse for an exercise in ageism. Even if he was still eyeing a trophy breakthrough as a sophomore, Walker was the unequivocal focal point of the defending champs and a consensus All-American.

A season later, Who else? now mocked a system, and attempted to size up the contenders across the entirety of the game’s landscape—a defiant declaration that was emblazoned on a cotton banner.

“You just know that he’s going to be better than he was as a freshman, because of the obvious that you’re more comfortable in the system, we’re probably going to throw it to him a little bit,” said Georgia quarterback Buck Belue. “That was the expectation, that we were going to do the back-to-back thing and he was going to lead the way.

“They didn’t give it to him as a freshman, but we expected him to get it as a sophomore.”

And how could they not?

The snub storyline of his freshman year only grew after Walker’s 150 yards against Notre Dame in the 1981 Sugar Bowl, a performance that came with a dislocated shoulder and a yardage that was 30 more than the rest of his team accounted for.

Walker had already reached a different kind of celebrity status, receiving three write-in votes for president of the United States in the 1980 returns of Green County, Georgia, and his draw reached the Great White North as well, as Nelson Skalbania, the owner of the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes, offered Walker a reported $2 million deal. “The negotiations got real serious,” Walker told United Press International, “and it was 50–50 for a while.”

His family backed up his future earnings by taking out a Lloyd’s of London insurance policy—which was initially reported by the Atlanta Journal to be worth $1 million, but later dwindled down to below $200,000—that created enough of a hoopla that it necessitated his releasing a statement through the school’s sports information office.

“My family felt it would be in my best interest to look into an insurance policy,” Walker said. “I discussed it with them a great deal. I feel it is basically a private matter as long as it is within the rules and should be kept within our family.”

It was within the rules, as it was Walker and not Georgia, meeting the insurance premiums—which were believed to be between $5,000–$7,000—through a deal with a bank that would defer payments until he turned pro.

‘’I was looking at him, and I said to myself, ‘You’re looking at a million dollars,’” Bulldogs fullback Ronnie Stewart told the New York Times in 1981 of that initial report of the policy’s worth. “He’s just a man, just like me. But he’s worth a million dollars.”

At Georgia’s picture day a month before the season, some 5,000 gathered for photos and autographs from the returning members of the national champs, and the throng had Walker sitting in full gear on a smoldering southern summer day for three solid hours. Of the seemingly grueling day, Walker—who also had designs on running in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and was working toward a black belt in karate—played it off as another part of his physical regimen. “[It’s] a good workout in my writing,” he told the Rome News-Tribune. “It has to stay in shape, too.”

He was, without question, the game’s biggest star, and stood as the presumptive preseason favorite to win the Heisman—even if he had no interest in discussing it before the season began.

“I don’t think anyone can think about the Heisman right now,” he told reporters that August. “You have to do your talking on the field.”

Still, there were three other players who finished in the top 10 in voting in 1980 back on their respective campuses, and that group had combined for 52 first-place votes, fewer than half of what Walker registered (107). That included the nation’s leading passer in BYU’s Jim McMahon (fifth), Ohio State quarterback Art Schlichter (sixth, and who had been fourth in ’79), and Michigan wide receiver Anthony Carter (tenth), and while they were known commodities, if momentum was setting the stage, Walker appeared to have it in excess.

“I felt like if anybody would break that [age] barrier that was unwritten about winning a Heisman, Herschel was one that was in a position to win it,” said Bulldogs coach Vince Dooley.

The question with Walker at that time wasn’t whether he was going to win a Heisman. It was about Heismans, and whether he could not only equal Archie Griffin as the only two-time recipient, but maybe even pass the Ohio State great.

“When you started to appreciate his talent and skill, you thought this could have been a multiple [-time winner],” said Belue, who played with Walker in both ’80 and ’81.

Hence the fearlessness—even if it was only for the sake of those trying to hock a product—to proclaim/dare/taunt, Who else? at pollsters to start a season in which the Bulldogs were replacing both of their starting offensive tackles and their right guard. But it would end up being Who else? that gave this dash to New York its bite, as a group of frequent archetypes fueled what remains arguably the greatest race in the Heisman’s storied history.

The 1981 race would pit against each other the preseason favorite and youth, both embodied by Walker; the statistical monster in the form of USC’s Marcus Allen; Pitt’s Dan Marino as the face of the title contender; BYU’s Jim McMahon, representing the challenger outside the power structure; and Schlichter, the presumed savior of an institution of a program (and the starter since his freshman year), who had yet to deliver.

But what truly helps define the significance of this race is the immense confidence of those around Walker and those who faced him. As Tennessee coach Johnny Majors said that November, “Herschel Walker is the greatest player in America.” And yet someone other than Walker was handed the trophy that year. Again.

There would be no fodder for the tin-foil-hat crowd this time, though. As Dooley says looking back on what would unfold that fall, “That’s just the way things happen sometimes. It’s all about timing, I guess.”

****

Marcus Allen was on the floor, rolling around with laughter. “Say what?” he told Sports Illustrated for its preview issue. “The Heisman. Come on.”

Humility was among the traits that defined Allen, the future Pro Football Hall of Famer, and there was maybe a twinge of that ahead of his senior season. But, in reality, the Southern Californian likely had his reasons for not buying in.

His Trojans career, to that point, had an always-a-bridesmaid vibe to it.

Recruited out of San Diego’s Lincoln High—where he primarily played quarterback—he had joined the Trojans as a defensive back. They were already stacked there, boasting All-Americans Ronnie Lott and Dennis Smith, along with Jeff Fisher, so on the fourth day of practice in 1978, coach John Robinson moved Allen to tailback. He rode the bench, rushing 31 times for 171 yards and a touchdown for the Coaches’ Poll national champions.

“They just said they thought I was a good athlete and they felt I’d fit in somewhere,” Allen told the AP in ’81 of his recruitment.

Another spring and another position change followed, this one completely unexpected: fullback.

Allen broke his nose on the first day of spring practice, and at 6-foot-2, 202 pounds, was giving up 30 pounds to the linebackers he was now attempting to block. But he proved an effective caddy for ’79 Heisman winner Charles White, who would run for 1,859 yards and 13 scores.

“Marcus had never been asked to be a blocking back before, and I’m sure it was difficult for him,” Robinson said in December 1981. “But he was enthusiastic about it and responded well.”

Allen would finally get his chance at tailback as a junior, but the narrative surrounding the Trojans was that they were scrambling. They had a five-man battle at quarterback to fill Paul McDonald’s shoes, with only two of them having accrued any previous playing time; All-American offensive guard Brad Budde was gone—oh, and they were replacing White with their fullback.

Robinson, though, knew the potential Allen represented.

“I’m convinced Allen will develop into one of the great backs in the country,” he said that preseason.

Allen rushed for 132 yards and a touchdown in the Trojans’ season-opening win against Tennessee and had three 200-yard games, including 216 against both Minnesota and Washington. Only Gamecocks Heisman winner George Rogers would run for more yards than Allen’s 1,563 on 354 carries in ’80, but that wasn’t enough in the land of trophy winners, a field that included White, O. J. Simpson, and Mike Garrett and runner-up Ricky Bell. Midway through that season, the Los Angeles Times ran a headline asking “Does USC Finally Have An Average Tailback?”

“Accepting the tailback legacy at USC is a major adjustment,” Allen told the Associated Press. “I’ve accepted it.”

With the criticism came rumblings that he might not be suited to fill one of the game’s most glamorous positions, and even his own coach’s defense of Allen’s numbers could come off as a backhanded compliment. But, in terms of the Heisman, Robinson was on board—even if Allen publically scoffed at it—especially after his tailback opened his senior year with 210 yards on 22 carries against Tennessee and a career-high 274 on 40 attempts against Indiana.

“Marcus has neither the flash of Charles White or the dash of O. J. Simpson, but he churned out 1,563 yards and 14 touchdowns in just 10 games [in ’80] and is a definite Heisman Trophy candidate,” John Robinson said ahead of USC’s September 26 game against No. 14 Oklahoma, which followed those victories over the Volunteers and Hoosiers. Allen rushed for 208 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the Trojans’ 28–24 win.

No longer the bridesmaid, he had now taken on the role of the tone-setter, and while Walker countered with 161 yards and a touchdown on 30 tries in beating those same Vols to open Georgia’s season, and another 167 on 35 carries a week later on Cal, the Bulldog suffered the first setback. In a 13–3 defeat at the hands of Clemson on September 19, Walker fumbled 3 times and lost 2—including 1 on the Tigers’ 17-yard line early in the game—and was limited to 111 yards on 28 attempts. It snapped Georgia’s 15-game winning streak, dating back to the next-to-last game of the 1979 season.

Walker had captivated during his record-breaking freshman year, but Dooley saw something different when he took the field as a sophomore. The element of surprise was gone, and after averaging 5.9 yards per carry in 1980, Walker was managing 4.7 a try through three games.

“He shocked a lot of people as a freshman, because they were not ready for him or did not focus on him as a freshman as they did as a sophomore,” Dooley said. “But some of the greatest runs he ever had were as a sophomore and they weren’t the long runs. They might have been 10-, 12- to 15-yard runs that were just really classical runs, getting every yard that he can, whereas as a freshman, he would break [free], and if he broke, with his speed … people were surprised and the defenses were not ready as they were when he was a sophomore because they were focused on stopping him.”

Walker was far from out of the race, though Allen was well on his way to laying claim to having the best chance at being the ninth straight running back to claim the Heisman. Beginning with Penn State’s John Cappelletti in 1973, followed by Archie Griffin’s two wins, Pitt’s Tony Dorsett, Texas’s Earl Campbell, Oklahoma’s Billy Sims, White, and Rogers, it was the Age of the Running Back in the annals of the Heisman. Despite his initial take on his candidacy in the days before the season, Allen smiled when pressed as to whether he’d given any thoughts to winning.

“I’d love to win the Heisman,” he said.

A quarterback hadn’t received the trophy since Auburn’s Pat Sullivan did so in 1971, though three would make a serious push to counter Allen and Walker, headlined by a passer fighting to get respect for his program, and his mind-boggling numbers.

****

“It was,” Jim McMahon so profoundly stated, “a miracle.”

Considered one of the greatest comebacks in bowl history, McMahon’s summarization stuck, as what became known as the Miracle Bowl could also have served as a four-minute ad for the validation of McMahon and BYU. The quarterback had orchestrated a rally from down 20 to lift the Cougars to a 46–45 victory over No. 19 Southern Methodist, producing three scores in the final 2:33 of the 1980 contest.

“He was very good,” said Cougars coach LaVell Edwards. “He had just an unbelievable last game as a junior to win that bowl game.”

Down 6 points with 18 seconds left and the ball on the Mustangs’ 41-yard line, McMahon missed on his first two pass attempts. Then, the Cougars went to what McMahon called the “save-the-game play.”

The receivers went deep and everyone else stayed in pass protection, trying to give the quarterback as much time as they could offer. As the Cougars wideouts moved toward the middle of the field, tight end Clay Brown followed, all abiding by instructions that McMahon would throw it up and hope for a pass interference call.

Brown and SMU’s West Hopkins went up for the ball, but it went right through the defensive back’s hands. A collection of four defenders fell on the Cougars tight end, trying to wrestle the ball away, but as the referee surveyed the situation he signaled for a touchdown and one Mustang simply fell to his knees in the end zone in disbelief.

“It was a ‘Hail Mary’ pass,” Brown said after the game. Qualifying his heroics at a Mormon institution, he added, “I can call it that because Jim and me are Catholics.”

McMahon finished with 446 yards and 4 touchdowns on 32 of 49 passing, the punctuation mark on a season in which he set 26 NCAA records with 4,571 yards, 4,627 total yards, 47 touchdowns through the air and 53 in all, and a 176.9 efficiency rating. Those figures led all passers, yet it was Purdue’s Mark Herrmann—whose stat line included 1,359 fewer yards, 24 fewer touchdowns, and whose rating was nearly 26 points behind McMahon’s—that was the consensus All-American and was fourth in the Heisman voting with 405 points to McMahon’s 189.

The Cougars rose as high as 12th in the AP Top 25 and finished 14th following the bowl victory, but the schedule and perception did the BYU passer no favors. Despite winning 12 games for the first time in school history, McMahon and Co. didn’t face a ranked team until the postseason, and the team they lost to—New Mexico, by a 25–21 score in the opener—ended up 4–7.

BYU had made strides under Edwards. Behind a pass-happy offense that produced the nation’s seventh-best scoring offense in ’77 (37.9) and first in ’79 (39.5), the Cougars had rattled off three straight nine-win seasons before going 11–1 in ’79, but they had just one win over a ranked team in that span, topping No. 14 Texas A&M 18–17 in 1978.

“I think it would have been very difficult for [McMahon] to win it, looking back at it, just because of where we were from, and our lack of so-called competition that people were always talking about, too,” Edwards said.

BYU quarterbacks had led the nation in passing yards in 1976, with Gifford Nielsen’s 3,401, and in ’79, as Marc Wilson threw for 3,720. But McMahon was different, Edwards notes, and no by-product of a system.

“What he had, just an uncanny, innate feel for throwing the football. In other words: getting it up on time,” the coach said. “One of the biggest things you’re always talking about is getting the ball up on time, throwing it on time, and the receiver makes the cut and the ball should be coming. This anticipation … this feel of not only where to throw it, but when. You don’t talk so much about the when, but it’s every bit as equally important as knowing where to throw it.”

McMahon had that, the cachet of the Holiday Bowl triumph, and the Cougars garnered some respect with their highest preseason ranking ever at 16th in the AP poll. The quarterback got off to a fast start, throwing for 403 yards and zero scores and had games of 226 yards and 4 scores (Air Force) and 267 yards and 4 touchdowns (UTEP) before his season and his campaign were derailed in Boulder, Colorado.

“He wasn’t ever really very big,” Edwards said. “He was probably 180 pounds when he was throwing and he was about 5-foot-11, maybe six feet. So he wasn’t a very strongly built guy. But he was very resilient. He took some pretty good hits and came right back up and was very, very competitive that way. The big thing we wanted was to keep him healthy so we could get the season out of him.”

McMahon was on track for a monster day against Colorado, completing 15 of his first 30 passes for 263 yards and 3 touchdowns, and added two more NCAA records to the thirty-five already on his résumé. But then came a hit by blitzing Buffaloes safety Ellis Wood with 13:41 left in the third quarter, which knocked the quarterback out of a game BYU would win 41–20. McMahon had suffered a hyperextended left knee and would undergo arthroscopic surgery that kept him out the next two weeks, games in which the Cougars edged Utah State 32–26 and fell to UNLV 45–41, as future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Young played in McMahon’s place.

Even with that missed time, McMahon still led all Division I QBs with 272 completions, a 64.3 completion rate, and 155.0 rating, and racked up 2,395 yards and 15 scores in six games after his return. That was topped by throwing 7 touchdown passes against Colorado State—to go along with 538 yards—and he burned rival Utah for 565 yards in the season finale.

“I missed two ballgames [with a hyperextended knee] and that hurt my chances,” McMahon told reporters. “But that’s life.”

The injury was a virtual death knell, even if he had rebounded to finish with 3,555 yards and 30 scores. While he was unable to overcome that blow to his campaign, another quarterback discovered just how devastating a late loss could be.

The 1980 Pitt Panthers were star-studded. The defense, headlined by Hugh Green, included five linemen who would all play in the NFL—Green, Rickey Jackson, Jerry Boyarsky, Greg Meisner, and Bill Neill—as did the offensive line of Jimbo Covert, Truss Grimm, Rob Fada, Mark May, and Ron Sams; receivers Dwight Collins and Julius Dawkins; fullback Randy McMillan; and kicker Dave Trout.

So deep was that roster that five non-starters went on to become NFL starters.

But it was sophomore Dan Marino who became the most accomplished of them all at the next level, and one of the best passers in pro history. Yet amid the ’80 season, he was part of a quasi-quarterback controversy in the Steel City.

The Parade All-American’s mere signing with his hometown Panthers in February 1979 was met with speculation of what it would mean for incumbent quarterback Rick Trocano, who months before Marino made his intentions known, had thrown for 1,648 yards and 5 touchdowns to 14 picks in helping Pitt to an 8–4 record and a loss to North Carolina State in the Tangerine Bowl.

“Competition in sports is everything,” Marino told reporters at a press conference in the library of Pittsburgh’s Central Catholic High School. “It should help Rick and me. Coach [Jackie] Sherrill told me he will never put me in until he feels I’m ready to play … I wouldn’t want to play until I’m ready, either.”

Seven games in, their hands were forced as Trocano went down against No. 17 Navy with a pulled hamstring, and Marino coolly responded with 227 yards and 2 touchdowns on 22 of 30 passing in a 24–7 win. The torch was seemingly passed, as Marino set a Panthers freshman record with 1,680 yards in an 11–1 season, and Trocano asked to be moved to free safety for his senior season, on the condition that he could still take over at quarterback if need be.

Pitt opened the season at No. 3 in the AP poll, but delivered two shaky offensive performances. It beat Boston College 14–6 despite Marino going 23 of 43 for 221 yards in his first 5-interception game on any level. “Everybody’s going to throw interceptions,” Marino told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Kenny Stabler threw five against the Steelers.” The quarterback also grappled with a 35-mph wind in Lawrence, Kansas, which resulted in his hitting only 17 of 18 passes for 250 yards in topping Kansas 18–3.

A week later against Temple, Marino connected on 9 of his 15 attempts for 150 yards and 3 touchdowns before suffering a knee injury and giving way to Trocano, who directed a 55-yard touchdown drive in the 36–2 win. While Marino was back at quarterback and Trocano again in the defensive backfield the next two games—at Maryland, a 38–9 rout, and at No. 11 Florida State, a 36–22 loss, Pitt’s only one of the year—Marino’s knee injury resurfaced in the Backyard Brawl at West Virginia.

Trocano stepped in and led Pitt to a 4-touchdown second quarter in a 42–14 rout and would start the next four games before Marino made another appearance. Even when the sophomore did return, it was a timeshare, with Trocano bringing the running threat to Marino’s big right arm.

In a 45–7 dismantling of Army, the duo combined for a school-record 436 passing yards, and Marino’s 20 completions were one more than Army even attempted.

“We’re a strong, two-quarterback team,” Trocano said after a 14–9 victory over Penn State in the regular-season finale. “It’s hard for an opposing team to prepare for us. They never know who’s going to be in there.”

Trocano was again at the controls in the win over South Carolina in the Gator Bowl, running for one TD and throwing for another as he hit on 10 of 21 passes for 155 yards. Marino also delivered a touchdown pass, but he was just 7 of 13 for 78 yards.

There were plenty of unknowns going into 1981, as the Panthers had to replace nineteen players who had inked pro contracts and had just five seniors from that team that finished second in the rankings. “I should have gone with them,” Sherrill quipped to reporters that preseason of the personnel losses. In addition, the defense was decimated, with nine new faces.

“We’re a long ways from having the football team we had last year,” Sherrill said. “But unless we have some bad injuries, I don’t think we’ll dip too far.”

The Panthers still began the year ranked eighth, largely because of the expectations for Marino.

Even though he missed four games, Marino still threw for 15 touchdowns—tied for 15th in the nation with seven others, including the Buckeyes’ Schlichter—and 1,609 yards as a sophomore, and the thought of what he could do in a full season as a starter throwing to sophomore wide receiver Dwight Collins (10 touchdown catches in ’80) enticed.

Marino eased in with 204 yards and 2 touchdowns in an opening 26–6 win over Illinois, then tossed 5 scoring strikes in a 38–7 rout of Cincinnati before throwing for a Pitt-record 6 touchdowns and 346 yards on 24 of 39 passing to sink South Carolina 42–28 in Columbia. But he suffered a badly bruised upper right arm against the Gamecocks and was forced to sit out the October 10 game with rival West Virginia, a 17–0 win in which the Panthers didn’t gain a single yard through the air. Backup Dan Daniels attempted just 6 passes, one of which was intercepted.

Marino was back the following week, throwing for 3 touchdowns and 251 yards in a 42–14 blitzing of No. 11 Florida State, a game in which the quarterback would become the school’s all-time leading passer.

Like McMahon, that missed game was devastating to his building campaign. But unlike the BYU star, Marino was playing at a national powerhouse, one that thanks to No. 1 Penn State’s 17–14 loss to unranked Miami on October 26, went into the final month of the season atop the polls.

The Panthers cruised through Rutgers 47–3. Marino’s line in that game: 18 of 28 for 239 yards and 3 TDs and one rushing score. They beat Army 48–0 (he played just three quarters, going 19 of 29 for 282 yards and 4 touchdowns) and Temple 35–0, a game in which Marino delivered 4 touchdowns and 249 yards on 20 of 34 passing.

Marino stood as the nation’s most efficient passer behind 32 touchdowns, 2,348 yards, and a 60.5 completion percentage, and going into the regular-season finale against Penn State, coach Joe Paterno doled out his praise.

“Dan Marino has picked apart every defense he’s seen,” Paterno told Field News Service. “We’re not going to stop him. We’re just hoping for a couple of dropped passes, a couple of penalties, things like that.”

Marino, though, seemed taken aback when told of the coach’s comments, saying, “Coach Paterno is trying to blow my mind a little bit.”

Paterno’s remarks seemed almost prophetic—“We’re not going to stop him”—as Marino hit Collins for touchdowns of 28 and 9 yards, respectively, in the opening 10 minutes to stake a 14–0 lead. But Marino would be picked off by Roger Jackson in the end zone on the first play of the second quarter, marking the first of his 4 picks in the game and 7 Pitt turnovers as the Panthers fell 48–14.

“Momentum is like a locomotive and when it got turned around we couldn’t stop it,” Sherrill told reporters.

The momentum of the Panthers’ title chase was over as they tumbled to 10th in the AP Top 25, and so were Marino’s Heisman hopes. But he had another season to live up to the expectations, saying that winter he believed he had “a good shot next year.”

While that local product still had time, it was running out for Art Schlichter to meet the immense hype that followed him to Ohio State.

Had he lived a couple hours closer to Penn State, the Bloomington, Ohio, native would admit at the end of his junior season, “I probably would have ended up there.”

Schlichter was heavily recruited by the Nittany Lions, but when he announced in 1978 that he was sticking close to home, he did so with a statement that would have seemed like blasphemy for much of coach Woody Hayes’s twenty-year tenure.

“Coach Hayes has assured me that Ohio State intends to build more passing into its offensive attack,” Schlichter said. “He and [assistant] coach [George] Chaump have told me the Ohio State offense will be retailored to challenge a quarterback to use all his abilities.”

This quarterback was that special, having not lost since he was in fifth grade and throwing for 1,794 yards and 21 touchdowns and running for 7.4 yards per carry for Miami Trace High School. Hayes, he of the three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust mindset, would be changing his ways as Chaump, who is credited for recruiting Schlichter, succeeded in getting the old man to get with the times.

“How soon will he start? That depends on several things,” Hayes told reporters upon landing Schlichter.

They removed one of those obstacles, shifting all-Big Ten quarterback Rod Gerald to receiver to make way for the freshman.

It had been 10 years since the Buckeyes won their last consensus national championship, and Schlichter arrived as the next Ohio native that would be the savior of a program that is a state’s lifeblood.

He started from Day 1, throwing 5 interceptions in a 19–0 loss to Penn State, but by the end of the 1978 regular season had racked up 1,250 yards on 87 of 175 passing with 4 touchdowns and ran for 590 yards on 157 carries with 13 scores. Still, the inability of the rest of the offense to catch up in a new era of Buckeyes football was glaring, as he also threw 21 interceptions.

If picks started the narrative of his first year in Columbus, it was only fitting one ended it—the final interception Schlichter threw that year led to one of the most infamous moments in college football history, and the downfall of a legend.

Facing third-and-five on the Clemson 24-yard line with 1:59 left in the Gator Bowl, Schlichter dropped back and threw a short pass into the middle, but Tigers middle guard Charlie Bauman stepped in front of it and pulled down the pick. Bauman was run out of bounds toward the Ohio State sideline and tackled by Schlichter near the feet of Hayes. As the Tiger rose, Hayes pulled him by the back of his jersey toward him and swung his right arm at Bauman’s throat.

At age sixty-five, after 321 games, the fourth-most wins in history at 238, two national titles, thirteen Big Ten crowns, three Heismans, and a pair of National Coach of the Year awards, Hayes’s illustrious career came to an unceremonious end. He was fired as the Buckeyes flew home from Jacksonville.

In stepped Earle Bruce in Hayes’s place and he hired Schlichter’s high school coach, Fred Zechman, as quarterbacks coach and put an even greater focus on the passing attack, often using all five receivers on a number of plays. It resulted in Schlichter standing as the nation’s top-rated passer midway through a season in which he passed for 1,816 yards and 14 scores; he also ran for another 430 yards and 9 touchdowns, and he cut down the interceptions in dramatic fashion, tossing just 6 with a 145.9 passer rating that was fifth-best in the country.

Schlichter finished fourth in the Heisman voting behind Charles White, Billy Sims, and Marc Wilson, all seniors. In fact, he was the only player in the top six that would be returning the next fall.

Add in the fact that he and the Buckeyes were two points from a perfect season, losing 17–16 to USC in the Rose Bowl, and began 1980 atop both the AP and UPI polls, and Schlichter was dubbed the favorite in the trophy chase. The stage was set for the junior passer to live up to the hoopla that followed him to Ohio State.

Said Syracuse coach Frank Maloney ahead of their meeting in the season opener, “He’s the best quarterback in the country.”

Schlichter’s stats were strong, as he was 122 of 226 through the air for 1,930 yards and 15 touchdowns, compared to 9 picks and he rushed for 325 yards and 7 touchdowns, and claimed the program’s career total offense crown with a season remaining. None of that, though, could mask the fact that the Buckeyes as a team fell flat.

They played on two nationally-televised ABC games and dropped both of them, losing to No. 11 UCLA 17–0 on September 29, and against archrival Michigan 9–3 to end the regular season. A spot in the Fiesta Bowl opposite 10th-ranked Penn State followed, and Ohio State was dumped 31–19 to end the year at 9–3.

Schlichter didn’t even end up being the Heisman leader at his own position within his own conference, as Purdue’s Mark Herrmann was fourth to Schlichter’s sixth. He drew eighteen first-place votes, and 158 points in all.

“It was a major disappointment because we had great expectations,” Schlichter told UPI the summer of 1981. “I don’t even like to talk about it.”

As Schlichter’s backup, Bob Atha, told Sports Illustrated, “They built up Art [for the Heisman] and it hurt him very much. And I think Art was conscious of it to a point that he ran the options in a way to protect himself from injury. You can’t blame him. We’re friends, but I felt sorry for him.”

During the winter of his junior year, the addiction that would ultimately be Schlichter’s downfall began to dig its claws into him. He had begun gambling, his first big win coming close to April 1979 when he put $72 down on a trifecta at Columbus’s Scioto Downs race track and won around $400. Two years later, he was gambling on sports and recounted to People how he had lost more than $5,000 in one weekend betting on baseball.

“When you lose, you face a down period,” he told the magazine for its January 15, 1996 issue. “Then the disease starts talking to you, telling you the next bet will be better than the last one, the next bet will put you where you want to be.”

The No. 4 pick by the Colts in the 1982 draft, he would lose his entire $350,000 signing bonus betting over a seven-week period. After losing nearly $500,000 on basketball games, his bookies threatened to expose him, and Schlichter went to the FBI and the NFL. Reinstated in ’84, he continued gambling and would be released five games into ’85 when the Colts discovered he’d been betting during his ban.

Schlichter signed with the Bills as a free agent for ’86 but lasted one preseason game, and a year later was arrested by Indianapolis police and charged with betting $232,255 on MLB, college, and pro football games.

He was relegated to signing with the CFL’s Ottawa Rough Riders and then the Arena Football League, where he ended his football career in 1992.

In 2012, at age fifty-two, he was sentenced to eleven years in prison for scamming participants in a sports ticket scheme in which he promised tickets to college and NFL games, tickets that, despite receiving thousands of dollars in payments, were never delivered. He was also ordered to pay $2.2 million in restitution.

“Schlichter instead spent the money on personal expenses, gambled with it, or used it to repay older debts,” federal prosecutors said in a statement.

He is scheduled to be released in 2022.

Those problems were still hidden from the public in 1981, as Schlichter entered his final season at the helm of the Buckeyes offense, and much like his entire time in Columbus—and what would follow—nothing went according to plan.

Ohio State claimed its first three games, victories over Duke, Michigan State, and Stanford—the latter of which came in a duel with John Elway in which Schlichter passed for 240 yards and 2 scores to Elway’s 248 and 2 touchdowns—but dropped three of the next six games to tumble to 18th going into the regular-season finale vs. seventh-ranked Michigan.

Schlichter had his moments amid the losses, setting a school record with 458 passing yards in a 36–27 loss to unranked Florida State on October 3, and when he left the penultimate game against Northwestern, a 70–6 rout, the quarterback received a standing ovation from the Ohio Stadium crowd.

He put on a show in his final meeting with the Wolverines, marching the Buckeyes 82 and 80 yards for touchdowns and rushing for a pair of touchdowns, with the game-winner coming on a 6-yard sweep with 2:50 remaining in a 14–9 win. Schlichter passed for 131 yards and ran for 9 more, the finishing touches on a season with 2,551 yards passing and 17 touchdowns and another 6 scores on the ground.

There would be no Rose Bowl, though, as Ohio State could only earn a share of the Big Ten crown with Iowa at 6–2. The schools never met on the field to create natural separation, but the Buckeyes had been to Pasadena in 1980 and the Hawkeyes last made it in 1959, so Iowa got the invitation to face Washington.

Schlichter and the Buckeyes were instead off to Memphis to face Navy in the Liberty Bowl, a game they’d win 31–28. The three losses hurt his Heisman chances, as did expectations that followed him over four years as a starter—and the quarterback seemed resigned to it in the days before the announcement.

“I won’t be disappointed if I don’t,” Schlichter told UPI of winning the trophy. “I’d love to win it, but if I don’t, I don’t. A lot of people don’t even get considered for it and I’m fortunate enough to have been.”

In another season, any of those quarterbacks could have won, but they had worked their ways out of the race, by what could be chalked up as an ill-timed loss, the perception of playing a lesser level of competition, or the backlash of impossible hype.

But in reality, it was just a matter of two of the greatest running backs in the college game’s history making a push for the 47th Heisman their own duel.

****

Marcus Allen considers himself a goal-oriented person. So when he told USC offensive coordinator John Jackson in the summer of 1981 of the number on which he was fixated for his senior season, Allen did so firmly believing it could be done. Never mind that no one had ever hit that figure before.

Two thousand yards.

The single-season NCAA record belonged to Pitt’s Tony Dorsett, who ran for 1,948 on 338 carries during his Heisman-winning season of 1976. But the way Allen figured it, if he had gained over 1,500 yards in his first season at any level with consistent carries at tailback, then 2,000 wasn’t out of the question.

“After understanding everything, the light went off and I said, ‘I got it,’” Allen told the website The Postgame in 2015. “I came back and told my coach ‘I want to gain 2,000 yards.’

“I figured if I gained 1,500 yards and I didn’t know what I was doing … now, I know what I’m doing.”

Through five games, Allen had piled up 1,136 yards—an average of 227.2 per game—and wouldn’t rush for less than 150 until October 24, when Notre Dame “held” him to 147 and a touchdown on 33 carries in the Trojans’ 14–7 victory. The following week, Allen ran for a career-high 289 yards and 3 touchdowns against Washington State, and then had 243 more with 3 more scores against Cal to break Dorsett’s single-season record.

What the Panthers running back did in 11 games, Allen needed just nine to accomplish, pushing his season total to 1,968 with two games to play.

“I’m still not that concerned about records, only getting to the Rose Bowl,” Allen said after beating the Golden Bears. “But when the season is over, I’ll probably look back and say ‘Wow.’”

He’d have to settle for 2,000 yards instead of a trip to Pasadena.

Standing 32 yards shy of his preseason goal against seventh-ranked Washington, Allen reached it on his fourth carry, on which he went 13 yards before linebacker Ken Driscoll brought him down. But afterward, Allen was more concerned with the Trojans having lost 13–3, giving them another Pac-10 defeat after falling 13–10 to Arizona on October 10. USC’s Rose Bowl hopes weren’t completely dead, but they would need to beat UCLA the following week and hope that Washington and Washington State played to a tie.

“I broke the [2,000-yard] barrier in the first quarter, but I wasn’t thinking about that,” Allen said days later, “[I] was only thinking about the game and the outcome. It was a day to remember and a day to forget.”

It was also a day with which Walker was generally unimpressed. While Allen was making history, the Georgia running back ran for 165 yards and a touchdown in a 24–13 victory over Auburn. That gave him 1,667 yards on the season, 51 more than he had during his record freshman season, and he still had a game to play.

“I don’t think stats matter,” Walker said after the win.

But if it was stats voters wanted, Walker supplied it in the regular-season finale against Georgia Tech, torching the in-state rival for 225 yards and four touchdowns in a 44–7 rout. Meanwhile, Allen had 219 yards and a pair of scores, the second of which came with 2:14 to play, as the Trojans edged UCLA 22–21.

Allen stood at 2,342 yards and 22 touchdowns going into the voting; Walker had 1,891 yards and 18 scores. The Trojans were 9–2 and eighth in the AP Top 25 behind their tailback and headed to the Fiesta Bowl and a date with No. 7 Penn State; Georgia was 11–1, ranked second, and set to face No. 10 Pitt in the Sugar Bowl.

“[The trophy] should go to the best athlete and the athlete who helps his team the most,” Walker said as their duel reached its final days. “He has a lot of yards, but so do I. As far as who is the best running back, I think I am a whole lot better.”

McMahon, conceding that he was out of the running the day before the announcement, believed that in delivering the unprecedented, Allen should win out.

“I’ve seen Marcus play and along with Herschel Walker, they’ve made a name for themselves,” McMahon would say. “Marcus had a really good year, and if I was to pick, I’d say he was the leading candidate right now.”

Voters agreed, as Allen received 441 of the first-place votes and 1,797 points in all, 598 points ahead of Walker—who topped 152 ballots—while McMahon was third, Marino fourth, and Schlichter fifth.

“I have found my place in history as the best player in the country at this particular time,” he said after his selection. “I put in a lot of hard work, but I was not alone. My parents, my coaches, and my teammates all are responsible for this award.… At the risk of sounding self-centered, I would have voted for myself.”

The margin of victory was no landslide in terms of point differential, with 14 votes decided by a bigger gap, but Allen had received 57 percent of all possible points. Only six winners had drawn more at that point in time: O. J. Simpson (80.6 percent in 1968); Tony Dorsett (74.9 in 76); Gary Beban (63.5 in ’67); Richard Kazmaier (60 in ’51); Archie Griffin (59.5 in ’74); and Jim Plunkett (58.7 in ’70).

“To tell you the truth, I thought the voting would be a lot closer,” Allen said days later at the All-American weekend. “I would never let myself believe that I could run away with it like I did.”

He wasn’t alone in that thinking, as Walker—who disclosed that he felt his sophomore status and needing to live up to the impact of his first season “ruined whatever chance I had”—said, “I don’t know what else I could have done this year. Maybe I have to gain 3,000 yards.”

Back in Athens, they understood. There was simply no arguing with history. Allen had delivered the greatest single season of any college running back, going over 200 yards five straight times and seven in all. Walker had no answer for that unparalleled number: 2,000.

“Was I disappointed? Well, yeah, a little bit,” Belue says now. “You always want your guy to capture stuff like that and it was a little disappointing because we expected him to follow that freshman year up and you wouldn’t have those people voting against him just because he was a freshman.

“He had just an unbelievable season, Herschel did, as a sophomore, but Marcus was so amazing, I don’t think anybody thought that he got cheated.”

Walker’s moment finally came a year later, the junior rushing for 1,752 yards and 16 touchdowns. He dominated the voting, with 525 first-place votes in distancing himself from Stanford’s John Elway by 695 points. But even then, when his pupil’s Heisman moment seemed assured, Dooley admitted he still wondered if Walker would be denied one more time.

“You could not help but get anxious about it until it was finalized and you knew it was the way that it turned out,” Dooley said. “But I really felt like he was going to win, but until it actually happened, there’s no question that you get a little bit nervous about it.”

Like those T-shirts, he couldn’t help but have it rattling around his head: Who else?