VICE Sports Heisman Watch: Christian McCaffrey Breaks the Modern Mold

The first Heisman Trophy was awarded in 1935 to Jay Berwanger, a football player from the University of Chicago who returned punts, kicked extra points, returned kickoffs, played linebacker, and ran for nearly 1,800 yards in 23 games as a college player. The award wasn't yet called the Heisman Trophy, though; back then it was known simply as "the Downtown Athletic Club's Trophy to the Outstanding College Football Player East of the Mississippi."

In the early days of the Heisman, in the era of two-way players, it made sense to honor a player like Berwanger, who did a little bit of everything. Eighty years later, vestiges of the romantic "all-purpose player" remain, but in a modern era predicated on offense, the trophy tends to go to a running back or quarterback on a winning team (Charles Woodson won the Heisman at Michigan in 1997 as a defensively oriented "all-purpose" player, but largely because he played both offense and defense on a national championship team). Which is why it's so improbable that a running back and return man from Stanford University has quietly crept into the conversation for an award that, in recent years, has consistently defaulted toward quarterbacks.

Of all the unlikely Heisman candidates in this year of wild swings in public opinion, Christian McCaffrey is the unlikeliest: he is only a sophomore; he plays for a two-loss Stanford team that stands on the precipice of College Football Playoff elimination; and he has the distinct disadvantage of playing on the West Coast, which means his games often reach their climactic moment long after voters in eastern time zones have crashed out for the evening. That McCaffrey is even in the conversation is a testament to both the wide-open nature of this year's Heisman race and the extraordinary numbers he's putting up.

In that vein, then, here is a blind comparison:

Player 1: 11 games, 393 total plays, 2,628 rush yards, 106 receiving yards, 421 kickoff return yards, 95 punt-return yards, 3,250 total yards, 8.26 yards per play

Player 2: 11 games, 331 total plays, 1,546 rush yards, 416 receiving yards, 813 kickoff return yards, 32 punt-return yards, 2,807 total yards, 8.5 yards per play

Player 1 put together one of the greatest seasons in college football history; Player 1 is Barry Sanders at Oklahoma State in 1985. And while McCaffrey's overall numbers aren't quite at that level, particularly in terms of rushing yards, McCaffrey is averaging more yards per play than any "all-purpose" running back to ever win the Heisman (he's also averaging more total yards per game, 255.2, than anyone on that list other than Sanders). His numbers are comparable to Sanders' and to those of Mike Rozier in 1983, which is also considered one of the great seasons by a running back in modern college football history.

That should be enough to propel him into finalist consideration, and if McCaffrey were playing for, say, an undefeated Stanford team, it perhapswould be enough to propel him to the Heisman. Against UCLA, McCaffrey ran for 243 yards and had a 96-yard kickoff return, Against Cal, he finished with a school-record 389 all-purpose yards. But both of those games started at 7:30 on the West Coast, which means both those games ended after 1:30 AM on the East Coast, which means McCaffrey's Heisman campaign is essentially a Zen koan.

"Offensively and special-teams-wise, has anybody seen a running back—I'll say this, a football player—better than Christian McCaffrey this year?" Stanford coach David Shaw asked. "Tell me. Show him to me. I haven't seen anybody."

McCaffrey is battling rankings and regional perception. He is battling the notion of the Heisman essentially being a team award, which is why Clemson quarterback DeShaun Watson and Alabama running back Derrick Henry might finish ahead of him, particularly among voters in the Northeast and the South. A few things are missing with McCaffrey in terms of the Heisman voting paradigm: one, the signature victory, and two, the signature highlight, something that unfolds in prime time for a voter bloc that might otherwise be skeptical of his chances. That's where this Saturday comes in.

There are many things at stake during Notre Dame's visit to Stanford on Saturday afternoon: primarily, both teams' hopes for slipping into the playoff. There is also a Heisman up for grabs, and if McCaffrey can pull off something spectacular in a victory, there's no reason to believe he wouldn't be able to leap to the front of a race that's still very much in flux.

Then again, it's possible even that won't be enough. From 2009 to 2011, a Stanford player three times finished second in the Heisman voting (Toby Gerhart in 2009, and Andrew Luck in 2010 and 2011), and it's reasonable to think that might happen again this season. Sometimes doing a little bit of everything is not enough; sometimes the modern paradigm prevails. The good news for McCaffrey's Heisman hopes is that Notre Dame-Stanford kicks off at 7:30 on the East Coast; the bad news is that if Derrick Henry rushes for 200 yards against Auburn earlier that day, it might not matter what McCaffrey does. The all-purpose player is still an outlier. The bruising SEC running back is a far more straightforward choice.