In my house, I have a box that is filled with Notre Dame memorabilia that is sentimental to me. Among those items are a College Gameday helmet from 2012, various free shirts from basketball games, and now a 33 Trucking hat. The hat reminded me about the turnaround the Irish had in 2017 and how dynamic Josh Adams was during the season. My thoughts then jumped to that Heisman campaign and how it could have been different. Adams stumbled down the stretch and the Irish played their way out of playoff contention. Adams was not more than a blip on the Heisman radar during October. Maybe the campaign should have been surrounding another player that year. Then, it hit me. What if Notre Dame put their chips behind Quenton Nelson instead?

The Heisman Trust uses the below quote on their official website in regards to their annual award:

The Heisman Memorial Trophy annually recognizes the outstanding college football player whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity. The winners of the trophy epitomize great ability combined with diligence, perseverance, and hard work.

Nowhere in that statement does it mention a specific position on the field. Yet, since 1997 when Michigan’s Charles Woodson won, the award has gone to either a QB or a RB. Larry Fitzgerald’s campaign in 2003 was the closest to a non-RB/QB came to winning the Heisman since 1997. The closest a non-skill position player came to winning the Heisman was Notre Dame’s own Manti Te’o in 2012. Which brings me back to Notre Dame’s Heisman strategy in 2017. What if the Irish decided to push their chips behind their future All-American at Guard?

What Could Have Been

In 1996, Ohio State was the #2 team for most of the season before falling to rival Michigan at the end of the regular season, essentially knocking them out of National Championship contention. However, the team and their SID office were more focused on their Heisman candidate, Offensive Tackle Orlando Pace. They centered the campaign around pancakes since Pace so often dominated his opponents off the line and put them on their back, which Ohio State claimed the total got to 80 on the season. Pace ended up finishing 4th during the voting, notably beating out the best offensive weapon on the then #1 team in the country in Warrick Dunn. For that brief moment, the college football media and other Heisman voters recognized greatness in a position casual fans would not be paying attention to in a given play.

If the media could rally around an outstanding lineman with a great campaign over twenty years ago, why couldn’t it happen again with Nelson? We know that the Notre Dame SID office could create thoughtful and interesting campaigns when they focused on Brady Quinn’s academic prowess matching his athletic prowess in 2006 and the use of the leis as a visual component to help build the Te’o campaign in 2012. Plus we saw the creativity in the #33Trucking campaigning. Looking back at the Rakes Report after the USC game, the question was raised about using Nelson as the face of a campaign, and even if you only account for the information we had at the time, the case can be made.

The report mentions that there were already many different “GIFable moments” which could easily double as his Heisman moments. If I were on the Irish social media team I would have really built upon those blocks calling them “Full Nelsons.” I think the term works on two levels; first obviously using the lineman’s name for branding but also showing off his pure physicality he showed from whistle to whistle. The wrestling emoji could be used to indicate a big Nelson play. You could have also used stickers the Avenue Q stage show logo in Notre Dame colors. (Mockups next to the original below)

     

On top of the social media aspect, Nelson was well on his way to becoming a future unanimous All-American. He was part of the Joe Moore Award-winning line. Frankly, if the Outland Trophy was strictly for offensive lineman he would have won that too (and maybe should have anyways over winner Ed Oliver). Per Pro Football Focus, Nelson graded at 99.0 in pass efficiency and 94.6 in run efficiency leading to a 95.1 overall grade. That overall score rated him 4th overall among players in the 2018 NFL Draft.

The question is where Nelson would have finished. The 2017 Heisman race was very top heavy, with only three finalists going to New York. Baker Mayfield eventually took the award. As much as we all love Nelson, he probably does not make it to New York. I do think that he had a better case than Saquon Barkley. Penn State faded a bit down the stretch and Barkley was more up and down in production. Nelson, despite the struggles of Adams in November, was fairly strong down the stretch, as indicated in his PFF grade. Unfortunately, we will never know what that universe looks like, and never will. So, my #33Trucking hat will stay in that bin; a reminder of what could have been. We will always have Nelson’s Heisman moment.

A True Heisman Moment