Tebow hopes for Heisman history

NEW YORK — A freshman or sophomore has never won the Heisman Trophy.

Of course, there's never been an underclassman quite like Tim Tebow. Actually, Florida's charismatic and multitalented quarterback has had a season like no other in major college football history.

Tebow, a sophomore, is the favorite among four finalists who will be in New York for the Heisman presentation Saturday night.

Arkansas running back Darren McFadden, last season's Heisman runner-up, is thought to be Tebow's main competition. Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan and Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel are the other finalists.

Conventional wisdom suggests Tebow's class status would leave him at a disadvantage against three upperclassmen, but Heisman voters have warmed up to the idea of voting for underclassmen over the years.

"I'm still a college football player," Tebow said Friday to a gathering of reporters at a hotel in Manhattan. "It doesn't matter what year you are."

For decades, underclassmen were an afterthought at Heisman time.

After SMU sophomore tailback Doak Walker finished third in the Heisman voting in 1947, the next underclassman to break the top three was Georgia's Hershel Walker, who finished third as a freshman in 1980 and second as a sophomore before winning it as a junior in '82.

During most of those 35 seasons, freshmen were ineligible to play.

"Sophomores in the past, such as a deserving Doak Walker in '47, for example, weren't given proper consideration because freshmen weren't eligible, and there was an obvious prejudice against youth," author and sports writer Dan Jenkins, who is the historian for the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame, wrote in an e-mail to the AP. "Better to vote for somebody who had done more to 'deserve' it rather than a one-season guy."

After Herschel Walker, it was another 10 years before an underclassman made a serious run at the Heisman. In 1992, San Diego State sophomore Marshall Faulk finished second to Miami quarterback Gino Torretta.

Since then, the combination of scholarship limitations in big-time college football and early departures to the NFL have given underclassmen more opportunities to play. As a result, more have become Heisman contenders.

"Sophomores today, having played as freshmen, are what juniors used to be," Jenkins wrote.