By Paul Casey Gotham
****Remember, try this without research. Release your inner James Joyce and show us your stream of consciousness as you try to decipher the answer.
I could have walked away from the gridiron a couple of times, but chose to not. I am glad I made the decision to stay. I led the nation in touchdowns while in college setting a record in the process. I didn’t get any school rushing records though. I guess that’s what happens when you go to a school with a former Heisman winner. Yeah, he was pretty valuable. In a strange way, he was the big reason why one franchise won a few Super Bowls. One team traded a bunch of draft picks and players for him. Those draft picks helped take a trio of Lombardis. I finished third in the Heisman voting. I got a lot more mileage in the game than the guy who won that year. I think he completed a grand total of five passes in the NFL. Me? I played for ten seasons. I rushed for more than 1,000 four times and even eclipsed 2,000 yards from scrimmage one of those years. But it wasn’t easy. I went from 169 yards one year to more than a thousand the next. That earned me comeback-player-of-the-year honors. Then I tore up my ankle a couple seasons later. My career looked to be done, but I earned that award for a second time. Not many guys have done that.
Who am I?
Well, this player must be a former Georgia Bulldog since that’s the school Herschel Walker played for. Walker, of course, was traded from the Dallas Cowboys to the Minn Vikings for a boatload of players and draft choices which layed the groundwork for the Super Bowl run with Aikman, Smith and Irvin. Herschel won the Heisman with Georgia … I remember he almost singlehandedly beat ND in the Sugar Bowl one year. So who are the outstanding backs from Georgia since Walker? Garrison Hearst was amazing in college but very injury prone in the NFL and Terrel Davis comes to mind …TD had a meteoric career with Denver and won a Super Bowl … but injuries cut his career short. I’m gonna say that Garrison Hearst is the players we’re looking for. He had a more reknowned college career than Davis and I do recall him making NFL comebacks a few times with the 49ers and Cardinals.
I’m guessing the guy who was drafted for a bunch f draft picks and players and helped that team win a couple Super Bowls “in a way” was Herschel Walker. So that means this RB is from Georgia. A bunch of RBs from there but can’t think of this one. Not KnoShow Moreno because he’s too young for this Who am I.
I am guessing that we are talking a running back from Pitt. Dorsett won the Heisman, holds most rushing records, and helped Dallas win a few Super Bowls. I am also guessing that this guy was third in Heisman voting the year Ryan Leaf won – did he win? Wow. I am stumped. Time to look at the answers of others.
Well, UGA seems the consensus over Pitt, so I am not even close. Re: Wally’s choice, didn’t Terrell Davis win comeback twice? Would that make him the answer over Hearst?
Silly me for doubting Wally! Hearst won CB Player of Year twice.
So who won the Heisman Trophy the year that Hearst finished 3rd in the voting? Based on the clue … “he completed a grand total of 5 passes in the NFL” … I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it must’ve been Miami’s Gino Torretta, definitely one of the most over-rated QBs ever to put on cleats, let alone win a Heisman. Good thing for him that he played for “The U” in their heyday with a great supporting cast … otherwise we’d never know his name.
I looked it up. It was Torretta. The following year, Charlie Ward won the Heisman. I remember he was the answer to a joke in the mid-to-late ’90s: Who’s the best QB in New York? Ward was playing for the Knicks at the time. Either Dave Brown or Danny Kanell was the Giants’ QB, although that would mean either Boomer Esiason or Neil O’Donnell was the Jets QB, and they weren’t bad.
Chas … ya had to bring up Charlie Ward, huh? He and his Seminoles lost the “Game of the Century” to Notre Dame that year in November … yet they STILL were AWARDED the national title. God knows they didn’t EARN it. Booby Bowden, yours truly, and thousands of others were all bumfuzzled by that outcome. That actually made the BCS look like a good system.
And we all know it’s very hard to make the B(C)S look like a good system!
BTW, in re-reading the WAI I have come to realize I am sometimes not a very good reader; no wonder I wasn’t even close.
Yes, Pete, I was gonna mention that, but since you caught it …
🙂
Old age. used to be a good reader – LOL!