Conspiracy theorists in Oklahoma and Mississippi were likely going nuts over the ESPN college football awards show last night. Pitt legends Hugh Green and Tony Dorsett were on hand to present awards, helping to convince some that ESPN has been biased towards Larry Fitzgerald winning the Heisman over Jason White and Eli Manning (why else would they have Pitt greats to present?).

No great shock that Fitzgerald won the Biletnikoff Award (outstanding wide receiver). Fitzgerald also won the Walter Camp Award as the top player in the nation earlier in the day — joining Green and Dorsett as Pitt players who won the award. Eli Manning won the Maxwell Award as the nation’s best all-around player . Michigan RB, Chris Perry, won the Doak Walker (top running back). Jason White took home the Davey O’Brien Award (top QB) to go with winning the AP Player of the Year the day before. All are Heisman finalists. Perry will probably finish 4th in the Heisman balloting, but it is interesting that the top overall player honors were split evenly.

It was a very good night for Fitzgerald. The bigger winner, though, might also be Pitt’s offensive coordinator J.D. Brookhart — who Fitzgerald singled out for his success in accepting the Biletnikoff. Brookhart is a leading candidate to get the head coaching gig with the Akron Zips (Akron? That’s a job with failure built in to it. How can that be a win? Rejoinder — Pacific didn’t end Harris’ career. You still make more money as head coach at Akron than as offensive coordinator at Pitt. Besides, with “offensive genius” Walt Harris calling plays, it’s not like there are tons of opportunities.).

As for the Heisman, well we can hope, but don’t hold your breath.

On the issue of whether Fitzgerald will seek and receive an exception to go early to the NFL. Well, I would love for him to stay one more year, but I couldn’t say he would be wrong to leave now if he could.

As I noted yesterday, at least one official Heisman Trophy voter from the Nittany Lion Nation did not vote for Pitt’s Larry Fitzgerald. However, an almost equally respected voice in the world of Penn State sports did: Ron Bracken — the Sports Editor of the Centre Daily Times (State College’s newspaper). Read this from today’s edition.

[Oklahoma Quarterback Jason White] owns a truckload of credentials, probably the most impressive of which is his touchdown-to-interception ratio of 40-8. His 64 percent completion percentage and 3,744 yards passing are also Heisman caliber. There is also his recovery from two serious knee injuries to reclaim his job. If he wins it, no one can really complain that he’s not worthy. He is.

But he was listed second on my ballot. Fitzgerald was first.

In a comparison, his numbers are right there with White’s — 87 receptions, 1,595 yards, 22 touchdown receptions. If anything, they may be even more impressive since he has so little control over how many times he touches the football while White gets it on every snap. Moreover, defenses came up with all sorts of radical schemes to shut Fitzgerald down, rightly figuring that to stop him was to stop the Pitt offense. And still he caught a touchdown pass in every game, made highlight film catches look routine and impossible catches seem rather common.

What’s more, his own human interest story is maybe even more compelling than White’s, given the fact that he lost his mother to cancer in the spring and one of his best friends, wide receiver Billy Gaines, to an unfortunate accident in the summer.

But the Heisman Trophy should not be awarded out of sympathy.

It’s awarded to the player who is deemed the single most outstanding college football player in the country each season. Both White and Fitzgerald fit that description. So why did Fitzgerald occupy the top spot on my ballot?

Read this paragraph from a recent story on him in Sports Illustrated in which he explains why he hands the football to an official after catching a touchdown pass: “Officials have enough to do without chasing the ball after somebody tosses it,” he was quoted as saying. “I’m a receiver, I’m supposed to score touchdowns.”

And the fact the he does it regularly and does not punctuate each score with some sort of end zone gyration or proclamation of his greatness, is a wonderful departure from the norm. [brackets mine]

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that the most eloquent argument that I’ve seen for Larry Fitzgerald’s deserving the Heisman Trophy came from State College, Pennsylvania.

Hail to my wife NOT seeing Bracken’s article.

(P.S. Bracken is usually a lot more fair to Pitt than Rudel is. That, obviously, is why I almost never quote Bracken on this blog.)