No big surprise there, really. Even though the network tried to make it suspenseful, no one expected anyone else to win it.

Now I'm going to have to root for Ohio State not only to beat Florida, but to beat them by a wide, wide margin. Yep, I'm an avowed "Gator Hater" here in Tallahassee, Florida and do not want to see Florida win a second national championship.

Not really exciting either if you follow college football.

Congrats to Troy Smith though.

Actually, there is something exciting about it if you follow college football. Smith is the first true quarterback from the Big 10 (11) conference to win the Heisman. Les Horvath (also from OSU) was listed as a quarterback when he won in 1944, but ran for 967 yards and completed just 14 passes that season.

If you think of some of the quarterbacks that came from the Big 10 (11), that's pretty amazing. Chuck Long, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Jim Harbaugh, Art Schlichter just to name a few.

Troy Smith also took money to play college ball. That's an illegal benefit.

Sure, he paid it back. After he got caught.

But illegal benefits to play college football should have disqualified him from even playing, let alone winning the top individual award.

He's a great player, no doubt, and he deserved the award on the merits, but it's a shame we don't take under the table cash to *some* college athletes more seriously. Whatever happened to honor and fair play?

Will:

I agree that the incident was a serious issue and was something he should have been punished for.

However, the incident you're referring to took place two years ago (the 2004 season), and he *was* immediately punished by OSU. He was suspended for two games, the bowl game that year against Oklahoma State and for the opening game in 2005, which the NCAA approved. Apparently, the NCAA didn't view the incident as something serious enough to suspend him permanently for. If you have a problem with that, then you should take it up with the NCAA.

OSU also took several steps to keep boosters away from players in an attempt to prevent this type of thing from happening again. Have fun finding a lot of schools that would take action before the NCAA would. Most of them would just try to sweep incidents like this under the rug.

And...taking money from a booster is not "illegal". It's against NCAA rules and is unquestionably unethical, as you point out, but it's far from being a "crime" or "illegal". I'm not sure that's what you meant by using the word illegal, but there are a lot of people who mistakenly believe this was a criminal act.

Whatever happened to punishing someone and then giving them an opportunity to redeem themselves?

Actually, almost every school takes action before the NCAA does. It's the best way of ensuring a slap on the wrist, which is what Smith's punishment was.

True, but I'm sure if there were more to it the NCAA would have made sure the penalty was a lot more severe. Just ask Jim O'Brien, former OSU basketball coach.

At any rate, the NCAA hasn't been proven otherwise, so I'd say they made the correct choice in this case.

I, for one, am glad their rules aren't as Draconian as you'd like them to be, or there would be a large number of immature and foolish kids who'd be kicked to the curb for minor infractions.

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