I mentioned Woodson, not to revive the Manning/Woodson debate. Draw a comparison. They used Woodson at every position. Late in the year, Manning even caught a pass for a TD trying to compete with the Woodson hype. JFF trying to kick the extra point is basically the same thing... promoting how valuable he is to the team... might have backfired.
Tom, I know Woodson won, but he also returned punts, and so had an "offensive" side. I had no problem with his win, since he really did kinda do it all. If Manti wins, I won't have a big problem with it, other than it means they overlooked my kid (i admit big bias) who's numbers are ridiculously good. RE being inconsistent. Actually I don't think he has. He started slow... against Florida the playbood was VERY limited and UF figured it out. He has improved greatly every week. Not always perfect. And yes he did struggle against LSU, what QB doesn't? That is probably the most althletic defense in college ball. Their secondary is probably a notch above ND's. He did turn it over 3 times against Ole Miss, but that was our first road game so I cut him some slack there too. Look at JM now, compared to that UF game, and you see QB now rather than just a kid taking snaps...
From the NYT... The three freshmen who finished highest in Heisman voting were Herschel Walker (third in 1980), Michael Vick (third in 1999) and Adrian Peterson (second in 2004). All three broke plenty of individual records, but they also led their teams to undefeated regular seasons and into the national championship game. Such success gave them cachet not normally afforded freshmen.