On Heisman Trophy weekend, here is our Syracuse football beef with Notre Dame

As both Syracuse and Notre Dame sit at home this bowl season, the Irish's situation a lot more contentious than the Orange's, the 2025 Heisman Trophy ceremony, the 91st such event, will be held Saturday night in New York City (7:00 p.m. ET / ABC), with four finalists to be on hand.

When the list of past winners are spotlighted during the event broadcast, we are always proud to see the name "Ernie Davis-Syracuse" listed next to the year 1961, the first African-American recipient of the award,

But we are always disappointed that Davis was not the first minority winner, and that Syracuse should, incredibly, actually have three Heisman Trophy winners in the school's 136 years of playing college football.

That's right. Besides Davis in 1961, both Jim Brown in 1956, and Don McPherson in 1987 should have also taken home the Heisman Trophy.

Donnie Mac got robbed because of a game in Week 4 of the '87 season

Saturday night, the 2025 Heisman landscape will mirror the 1987 season, one in which Don McPherson led Syracuse to an out-of-nowhere, magical 11-0 regular season and Sugar Bowl berth, providing him an invitation to the the award ceremony as one of five finalists.

The quarterback on this year's only undefeated CFP team having its own magical season, Indiana's Fernando Mendoza, is expected to win the award among the other three finalists - Jeremiyah Love of Notre Dame (171 yards rushing-three TDs vs. the Orange this season), QB Diego Pavia of Vanderbilt, and QB Julian Sayin of Ohio State.

Only Donnie Mac did not end up winning the award in 1987, because the Notre Dame PR folks went into full blitz mode promoting WR/punt returner Tim Brown ("Touchdown Timmy") for the Heisman after he returned two punts for touchdowns in a September, national TV prime time game against Michigan State.

Not only, was that game only in Week 4 of the '87 season, but Notre Dame would end up losing to Pitt, then Penn State and Miami in the last two games of the regular season to only finish 8-3, not like McPherson who guided SU to an undefeated record for an Orangemen team that played its bowl game with an outside (long) shot to win a national championship.

Jim Brown got robbed because of the lore of Notre Dame football, ignorant voters, and Syracuse's lack of a brand name

The only Heisman Trophy winner to play for a team with a losing record?

That would be Paul Hornung of the Irish's 2-8 team in 1956, a season in which like Brown, Hornung played multiple positions on both sides of the ball and kicked, compiling admirable stats for a team that struggled to win games but played three times on national TV.

Hornung also graced the cover of Sports Illustrated in late October of the season, while Brown's national coverage was limited to one NBC TV game against Army at Archbold Stadium the fifth week of the season.

The other major contender for the '56 Heisman were Tennessee RB Johnny Majors, a favorite of the voters in the south ,and a pair of Oklahoma players, WR Tommy McDonald and LB Jerry Tubbs, who would eventually lead the Sooners to an undefeated season and national title.

Brown finished third nationally in rushing, and his famous game against Colgate that season, six touchdowns, seven extra points for a total of 43 points, stood as the NCAA single-game record until 1990.

But Brown finished fifth in the voting, not even appearing among the top five on some ballots submitted from voters west of the Mississippi River, despite having overwhelmingly better stats in most categories than Davis would finish with when he won (poetic justice?) the Heisman five years later.

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