NCAA FootballVideo

Trent Richardson May Have Just Won The Heisman With This Stiff-Arm

Football analysts and talking heads like to mythologize the “Heisman Moment,” that one play or sequence that sways voters and solidifies a candidate’s worthiness to win one of the greatest individual honors in sports.

The Heisman Moment, we are told, must occur on a big stage, against a big-time opponent, with all of America looking on. Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, considered by many to be the pre-season Heisman frontrunner, missed on opportunity to have his Heisman moment when he had a mediocre outing in a loss to Oregon two weeks ago. Trent Richardson: the floor is yours.

Tonight, on the biggest of big stages, Richardson delivered, rushing for 203 yards against Auburn in his school’s biggest rivalry game (and one of the biggest rivalry games, period) and helping them to a comfortable 42-14 win. The play that everyone will be talking about tomorrow — and the one that, as CBS’ Verne Lundquist noted, may be remembered as Trent Richardson’s Heisman Moment — was this vicious stiff-arm. Yep: that does look like a Heisman run.