re: Do you take the hesiman seriously, if so why?

It is an College football individual award I don't see why this would be a relevant question on a College Football forum. It is like asking if the Ray Guy or the Thorpe should be taken seriously. What is the point of an objective question in this situation? It is what it is, people will vote for it, discuss it, analyze it, even argue about it, but its just a nice award to honor an individual in a team sport (or 3 or 5 depending on the people invited to NYC).

Now concerning AJ. I think the nature of our team and the style of ball that we play can make people scoff but AJ is a serious contender. He is a smart, heady, athletically gifted QB. He has good size, underrated mobility and the arm strength/touch to make every throw he required to in our playbook and offense.

If we are simply going to say though that raw yardage production mainly passing yardage is the be all and end all is dumb.

Right now if everything plays out the way it should in College football I think Mariota is the Heisman winner. If Oregon Football is undefeated after Conference Championship game weekend. While people point to raw yardage I think other stats should be used to build the case for a QB's Heisman campaign. Mainly things that show how they contribute to the offense. Football is a team sport I don't care if you took the most individually gifted QB to ever put on the pads they did not catch their own passes, they didn't protect their own blindside, they didn't take their own handoffs, etc. Football being a team sport means you have to imo analyze how that individual contributes to that team, its offensive production. And the nature of the QB position also means that individual is often in a position of leadership and the role of the QB is to manage the game for the offense hence the term field general.

You simply can't hand the award to the guy with most passing yards especially in the age of the diversity in offensive strategy and styles in major college football. While the term product of the system was a majorly flawed concept often used to slander the playing ability of QBs there were some true things in it. If a guy is throwing every down and his team is playing in situations where they are having to throw the ball the entire game including potentially overtime because of the nature of their team. Where as a QB playing on a juggernaut team running a West Coast or Eardhart Patriots system is relying on spreading the ball around among players (instead of areas of the field ie with the "spread" offenses)

So with so many endless variations in offensive style, overall team strategies, the defenses they have or haven't played, potential injuries, the amount they play because the game is no longer in doubt. It can be difficult to decide then which QB is having a better year. Here is something I have noticed recently. Don't get me wrong certain players are tremendously talented but we as fans ultimately have trouble distinguishing between Talent and overall how good of a player a person is. And when it comes to QBs that often comes down to the mistakes they make or don't make.

Manziel, Mettenberger, Murray and Boyd have this season even just 2/3 of the way through the regular season as experienced QBs who have played a lot of games all four have made devasting mistakes that have directly led to these individual players losing the game for their teams. If we are going to give people credit for making plays then we need to fairly make sure they take minuses for mistakes.

Mariota Winston and McCarron have all three so far into this season led their teams to undefeated records. That means all three have not made a mistake that has cost their teams a game. In fact Mariota has yet to throw an interception. Based on the fact that Winston is the youngest and least experienced I think it is rational to assume that he is the one least likely to finish out the year without said mistakes.

All that said if the season ended today and to scale up the way the season is now but instead how it may look in late December my theorhetical but doesn't count Heisman ballot would look something like this:

1st - Mariota
2nd - McCarron
3rd - Winston
4th - Baylor QB

I don't think McCarron is your winner unless something major happens. That is some key injuries to other candidates. But the way he had been disrespected and often plain out derided in the media at large I will be content with McCarron simply being a finalist and at the ceremony.

While Manziel is a dynamic playmaker and we've all seen Mettenberger's rocket arm the fact they both made key mistakes in losses that had both their teams out of contention for championships before Halloween should leave some of of discount to their heisman campaigns.

With the experience both of them have you can no longer ignore their ball security issues especially when you are talking about National awards for playing QB or national awards for being a Valuable player.