Baylor’s Robert Griffin III Claims Schools First Heisman
Baylor’s Robert Griffin III, or more commonly RG3, captured the 77th Heisman Trophy Saturday evening edging out the likes of Stanford’s Andrew Luck, Alabama’s Trent Richardson, Wisconsin’s Montee Ball and LSU’s Tyrann Mathieu.
“This is unbelievably believable,” Griffin said. “It’s unbelievable because in the moment we’re all amazed when great things happen. But it’s believable because great things don’t happen without hard work.”
It was the first Heisman winner for the school down in Waco, Texas. In fact Baylor’s never had a player finish better that fourth in the voting and that was 48 years ago.
Griffin received 405 first-place votes and 1, 687 points.
Luck received 247 first-place votes and 1,407 points to become the fourth player to be a Heisman runner-up in consecutive seasons and the first to do so since Arkansas running back Darren McFadden did it in 2006 and ’07.
Alabama running back Trent Richardson was third with 138 first place votes and 978 points, Wisconsin running back Montee Ball was fourth with 348 points and LSU defensive back Tyrann Mathieu was fifth at 327 points.
Griffin’s ‘signature win’ of the season came on a deep cross-field touchdown pass with eight second left on the clock to defeat Oklahoma. He put up unbelievable numbers on the year completing 72 percent of his passes for 3, 998 yards with 36 touchdowns to just six interceptions and had a nation-leading 192.3 passer efficiency rating.
And that was just threw the air.
On the ground Griffin carried it 644 yards and added nine more scores.
He lifted the Bears into the National Spotlight and helped guide Baylor to a 9-3 record, one of the best seasons in school history. The 15th-ranked Bears won nine games for the first time in 25 years, beat the Sooners for the first time ever and went 4-0 in November.
Baylor had won a total of four November games in their first 15 Big 12 seasons combined. The last three games of the month you ask? Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Texas.
Griffin has left little if any doubt on his pro-potential, but still has one more chance to showcase his talents as the Bears will face Washington in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 29th.