Woodson won that from either an int or a reception on the sideline that got the espn hype train going.
The whole reason he won the hesiman was because he was a "2 way player". But he had a lot of interceptions and according to stats didn't to [uck fay] all the rest of the time. Didn't tackle anyone and barely caught the ball. Eric Berry would have been more deserving of the Heisman.
I remember Manning was toast after Woodson caught an easy TD pass against Penn State and Sports Illustrated described it as PSU being so disorganized from their fear of Woodson they forgot to cover him. I realized the narrative had been set and in overdrive, at that point. One of the few times where I bought the conspiracy. They were out to make this a horse race. Then, I remember Peyton throwing for 500+ yards on Kentucky and the Sports Reporters show on Sunday morning was dismissive with Mike Lupica saying "Yeah, but what did he do on defense!?".
Peyton was gonna run away with the Heistman (spelled correctly btw) and ESPN needed some competition for Peyton, so they hyped up Woodson. I don’t think they ever thought Woodson would win it, but once the train got rolling it was too late. That’s not even the worst Heistman robber in our history. Majors losing to a 2-8 Paul Hornung was worse. 2 and [uck fay]ing 8.
And I've said it before, there was a RB at Syracuse that year that should have won it over all of them. But he didn't look like everyone else.
Had there been a precedent of defensive players winning or really any continuation of including defensive players in the discussion you might be able to say this wasn’t a total sham.
I think ESPN is still replaying one or two of his plays at the top and bottom of the hour on one of their channels, maybe the Ocho.
I don't understand how Suh or Tyrann Mathieu doesn't win it after Woodson did either. They were the best football players in 2009 and 2011 in the country, no offense to Ingram or Griffin III