Aidan Hutchinson Named a Heisman Finalist
In a selection that went from longshot to fait accompli in approximately four weeks, Aidan Hutchinson was officially announced as a finalist for the 2021 Heisman Trophy on Monday:
Hutchinson will be joined in New York by Alabama QB Bryce Young, Ohio State QB CJ Stroud, and Pitt QB Kenny Pickett. Young is the overwhelming favorite to win the award on the heels of a 461 total yard, 4 TD performance against Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. Stroud was the betting favorite until late in the season… but then Aidan Hutchinson happened.
The Heisman Trust has been naming finalists since 1982. Hutchinson is Michigan’s sixth finalist, joining Jim Harbaugh (’86), Desmond Howard (’91), Charles Woodson (’97), Chris Perry (’03), and Jabrill Peppers (’16). Hutchinson is the fifth defensive lineman to be named as a finalist, joining Steve Emtman (‘91), Warren Sapp (‘94), Ndamukong Suh (‘09), and Chase Young, (‘19). No defensive lineman has finished in the Top 3 in Heisman voting since Pitt DE Hugh Green in 1980 (and yes, Suh finishing 4th behind Mark Ingram, Toby Gerhart, and Colt McCoy remains an insult to gigantic men everywhere). Also, one little-known fact: only one defensive player has ever won the Heisman.
The trophy will be handed out — ostensibly to the Most Outstanding Player in College Football — on December 11th. There is no content after the jump.
December 6th, 2021 at 6:44 PM ^
Hell yeah! Well deserved - best football player in the Country.
December 6th, 2021 at 6:54 PM ^
Awesome.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:02 PM ^
CJ Stroud are you happy to see Aidan Hutchinson?
Very happy for Aidan.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:02 PM ^
The saltiness on RCMB will be delicious. They are so pissed that Aidan has gotten the recognition he deserves, and that Walker fell off. Congrats, Aidan!
December 6th, 2021 at 7:17 PM ^
They can be salty. Heisman finalists show up in their biggest games. KWIII's heisman campaign died when he got nothing on OSU. Aidan had a TD vs MSU and then rampaged vs OSU and Iowa. RCMB can cry all they want
December 6th, 2021 at 9:39 PM ^
Walker dominated OSU!!
Oh wait.
Aidan did.
Spartan tears
December 7th, 2021 at 12:18 PM ^
Well he had a td taken away. If he had a td UM probably wins and is undefeated and ranked #1.
December 6th, 2021 at 8:09 PM ^
Has there ever been a Heisman finalist to lose a game 56-7?
December 6th, 2021 at 9:04 PM ^
Good question. I do remember Heisman winner Ty Detmer losing his bowl game 65-14 to Texas A&M. Weeks after he won the award of course.
December 6th, 2021 at 9:19 PM ^
Thought about this and Troy Davis comes to mind, he finished 5th in the voting in 1995 for 3-8 Iowa State, 2nd in '96 for 2-9 ISU. Worst loss was in '95, 73-14 to Nebraska. Not sure if he was an official finalist either year.
That Nebraska team was probably the best team in my lifetime. They had 776 yards in that game, including 624 yards rushing. Davis did manage 121 on 28 carries. (One of two backs to get 100 on Nebraska that year.)
Edit: OK, I have an answer: Melvin Gordon, RB for Wisconsin in 2014. Finished 2nd in the voting, one week after losing to OSU 59-0 in the Big 10 Championship Game in which he had 26 carries for 76 yards. I wonder how many votes had already been cast/decided by then, but he did have 2336 yrds and 26 TDs by then so it was still pretty deserved...
December 6th, 2021 at 9:19 PM ^
Walker should have gone to NYC at least but it's sort of crazy seeing MSU fans complain that Walker had better stats than the recent Heisman RB winners. They're basically complaining that he should win the award if Mark Ingram got it in 2009, which is an argument that mostly highlights how undeserving Ingram was. Beyond him the other players who won the Heisman as RBs all had more impressive seasons, from Derrick Henry to Reggie Bush all the way to even Ricky Williams and Ron Dayne.
I mean, we might as well consider Jerome Ford from Cincy, who put up more rushing TDs (and more overall TDs) with the same ypc. on a team going to the playoffs undefeated. Or give it to Sean Tucker, who as a freshman at Syracuse put up 25 more total yards from scrimmage and only 5 fewer total TDs and helped them go from 1-10 to 5-7 in a P5 conference.
I think Walker should have gotten a bid over Stroud but crowing about Walker scoring 5 TDs against UM and then conveniently ignoring any games that came after that is why it's hard to take MSU fans seriously.
December 6th, 2021 at 9:41 PM ^
So sick of hearing he is a Spartan. He is a mercenary who smartly used MSU for his own progression. MSU is just a stepping stone. He is a Wake Forest player.
December 6th, 2021 at 10:44 PM ^
Thank you for providing evidence that Ingram was undeserving. That one always bothered me as the good player on a great team Heisman.
December 7th, 2021 at 12:23 PM ^
I think our rb has more td's rushing this year.
December 7th, 2021 at 5:22 PM ^
Ingram was a marginal Heisman winner for sure, but still had a more complete season than Walker.
Ingram: 1658 rush yards, 17 rush TDs, 32 receptions, 334 receiving yards, 3 receiving TDs
Walker: 1646 rush yards, 18 rush TDs, 13 receptions, 89 receiving yards, 1 receiving TD
MSU rarely passed to Walker, and from what I saw, he didn't distinguish himself in pass protection. He was basically just a runner, and that usually isn't enough, unless you put up absolutely monster numbers (like 2000+ yards).
December 7th, 2021 at 9:33 AM ^
Tears of Disrespekt taste like salty ice cream.
Delicious.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:04 PM ^
If the Auburn running back goes down inbounds, I don’t think Young has his big moment there and it wouldn’t have mattered as much against Georgia.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:45 PM ^
We'd also be the #1 seed playing #4 ND.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:49 PM ^
Yup! Ugh!!!
December 7th, 2021 at 7:03 AM ^
Would Bama have still made the SEC CG in that case? Even if so, not sure how motivated they’d have been.
They definitely wouldn’t be in the CFP though.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:05 PM ^
If only there were some precedent of a Michigan defender winning the Heisman over a highly touted SEC quarterback...
HA! This is great news. Aidan had a helluva season and is deserving of this honor!
HAIL!
Really hope he sits next to Stroud and just talks an enormous amount of smack to him all night.
December 6th, 2021 at 8:51 PM ^
These guys have respect for each other. It is the fans who would talk smack if they were in their shoes.
December 6th, 2021 at 10:19 PM ^
As much as I like Hutchinson, he ain't gonna win it.
People forget that as good as Woodson was, he also returned punts and played in spots on offense too. Otherwise I don't think he gets it.
It's a shame but the Heisman has been an offensive stat reward all my life.
December 7th, 2021 at 8:40 AM ^
Absolutely right. Woodson played defense, offense, and kick returns. Great as he was, he would not have won with defense alone.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:09 PM ^
Congrats Aidan!!!!!
You da man ???
So sorry KWIII didn't make it ???
December 6th, 2021 at 7:14 PM ^
Hopefully CJ isn't too afraid to be in the same room with Aidan again
December 6th, 2021 at 8:41 PM ^
CJ Stroud had a pretty good game throwing for 394 yards and two TD's. It was the OSU defense that blew it.
December 6th, 2021 at 9:13 PM ^
And their O-Line that let Hutch sack him 3 times.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:14 PM ^
Suh not finishing as at least the runner up was such highway robbery. But I keep seeing people using that as justification for keeping Hutchinson down. Someone else not getting the full respect they deserve is certainly no reason to repeat that behavior. Im sure they give it to Bama's QB because that is how this works... but after what he did to Stroud Hutch better finish 2nd!
December 6th, 2021 at 7:52 PM ^
Injustice isn’t alleviated with more injustice
December 6th, 2021 at 9:03 PM ^
Suh was so clearly the best player in the country that year, it wasn't even close....but he didn't play on offense or return punts....then again, he's a hard guy to have a lot of sympathy for
December 7th, 2021 at 2:14 PM ^
I, for one, think I would have immensely enjoyed watching Suh return punts.
December 7th, 2021 at 12:23 PM ^
I don't like Nebraska, the Lions, or even Suh that much.
As a football fan, I am still angry he didn't win the Heisman.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:21 PM ^
Stroud walks in ...
And he's sacked.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:23 PM ^
Congrats Hutch on making it to New York. Great player, great leader, great man.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:27 PM ^
A lot of you reminded me of Paul Finebaum wishing Harbaugh was fired. Now look. He produced a Heisman Finalist in Hutch.
December 6th, 2021 at 8:21 PM ^
Finebaum is an idiot and needs to retire. These days he just says stuff to draw attention to himself.
December 6th, 2021 at 8:45 PM ^
That's how a lot of people sounded: idiotic.
December 6th, 2021 at 11:35 PM ^
Finebaum dumping on Harbaugh got ESPN a whole lot of clicks and eyeballs. "Data-driven" companies like ESPN know this. Producers better come up with some better outrage-bait for Pete or these shows aren't going to need him on anymore.
December 7th, 2021 at 9:35 AM ^
*Pete
December 6th, 2021 at 7:28 PM ^
Honestly Walker should have been invited over Stroud.
But I'm very happy that they rewarded Aidan for his dominance.
December 6th, 2021 at 8:25 PM ^
How many yards did Walker have against Ohio State? 25 yards and that was it. Stroud had an amazing season for someone who never threw a pass in college going into the season opener against Minnesota. His stats were pretty damn good being named B1G offensive player of the year, QB of the year, and Freshman of the year. No other player has won those three awards in the same year in the Big Ten.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:37 PM ^
Alright, Mgoblog. If we are going to push Aidan's candidacy over the top, we have five days to a.) set up a fake online profile with attractive pics, b.) catfish Aidan, c.) fake our death, and then d.) draw massive media attention to this fact. Meeting at the old treehouse at midnight.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:46 PM ^
Lol and to hell with Notre Dame.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:47 PM ^
I got a pack of crayons and hid a beer in the woods I stole from my dad.
Billy has a Playboy; we can find a girl in there
December 6th, 2021 at 8:43 PM ^
Uh get some help dude.
December 6th, 2021 at 7:45 PM ^
He has to finish above Stroud, right? So at least 3rd.
Will Pickett go into a (false) slide on sight of Hutch?
December 6th, 2021 at 7:53 PM ^
Never underestimate the vigor with which Heisman voters masturbate to QB stats.
December 6th, 2021 at 8:05 PM ^
Mostly meant from the perspective of Aidan and team dominating Stroud and team. But then you didn't see me complaining that M was ranked ahead of MSU despite the head-to-head result (I will not say loss).
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