Reggie Bush Gets Back His Heisman. Now Change The Rules To Do This Right

Reggie Bush Gets Back His Heisman - Finally

The Heisman Trophy Trust announced a “historical reinstatement” of Reggie Bush’s 2005 Heisman.

It was silly then and it’s sillier now, so let this be a spark for two key aspects of college athletics that need a fundamental change.

1) Stopping the meaningless punishments, and ...

2) How to do awards. If you’re going to do them, make them matter as much as you possibly can by representing the entirety of the campaign and not just the regular season.

Two very, very different things, and two key items both tied into the Bush Heisman kerfuffle.

For those who don’t remember or need a refresher, USC was the powerhouse of powerhouses in the mid-2000s, and Reggie Bush was the star of stars. He won the 2005 Heisman with relative ease, and there wasn’t a whole lot of debate about it, even though Texas quarterback Vince Young was more than deserving of the honor.

Bush was ruled naughty for his involvement with a marketing company, and for other violations of NCAA rules, so the Heisman types later stripped him of his award making 2005 a vacated year.

Again, it was ridiculous - to tweak the Apocalypse Now line, taking away Bush’s Heisman was like handing out a speeding ticket at the Indianapolis 500 - and it wasn’t for anything bad.

In fact, what Bush was punished for turned out to be the model for how college athletics are now trying to get out of paying athletes a salary.

The idea was to make an example of Bush for future possible Heisman winners. Do something against the rules, and no cookie for you after dinner. It didn't take.

But again, back to the changes that need to come from this.

There was talk at the time that instead of the Heisman being a blank space on the list for 2005, Young should’ve been given it as the runner-up. After all, his iconic performance in the national championship to beat Bush and USC made him a more than worthy winner.

Young said he didn’t want it that way, nothing happened, and Bush lost the Heisman until now.

But Young probably should’ve won it if the Heisman did this right and conducted the voting and handed out the award AFTER THE SEASON WAS OVER.

It’s a strange quirk among my fellow college football media colleagues that I never understood.

They’re all into the idea of awarding the Heisman before the bowl games, as if being a regular season award doesn’t look ridiculous if someone else rises up and proves to be the signature player of the college season after the bowls and playoff.

It’s like handing out a grade before the final exam.

I never got it in the NFL MVP race, I don’t get it for college conferences naming their all-conference teams before the league championships, I don’t get it other than to do this in a bit of a lull before the biggest games of the season are played.

If college football did this right and awarded the Heisman after the entire season, Vince Young wins in 2005. And that would’ve been okay.

The second part of all this is the punishment angle. The Heisman and NCAA are totally separate - it’s the Heisman’s party and it can do whatever it wants with its award - but this whole Bush thing goes to the idea of taking something away that already happened.

The NCAA likes to vacate things because it seems important, but it's a toothless act.

It’s so slow in its investigations and inquiries that often times it’s not able to come up with a judgement until months or years after the supposed infractions were committed. It doesn’t mean the games didn’t happen.

I voted for Reggie Bush for the 2005 Heisman. That can’t be changed.

We all saw Louisville players and coaches win the games to take the 2013 national title in basketball. That was vacated in 2017, but the games happened. The moments happened. The Louisville Cardinals won.

We all might despise everything that went on at Penn State during the scandal of all scandals, but Joe Paterno was the head coach and the football team won those 111 games that were vacated.

Vacated wins aren’t a deterrent - you can't just erase something from a book that happened on the field. Taking away awards and honors after the fact don’t matter.

You think a Michigan Wolverine fan would care in any way, shape, or form if a year from now the 2023 national title run in football has an * or something next to it?

But, to be corny, every big change requires a step. Reggie Bush got his Heisman back, and one of the games greatest players can officially be all back full into the fold.

It’s a start.