Woodson winning the Heisman ("hypeman") shows you the power of the media and its ability to influence or manipulate. Peyton won every other award that year in which he was nominated.....except the Heisman. Here's another reason...
1. Danny Wuerfful (UF) won it in '96. (Peyton was ranked 8th - but had better stats)
(stats)
1996 Heisman Trophy Voting | College Football at Sports-Reference.com
2. Peyton was up to winning it in 97. (Tim Couch - QB/KY - was 9th in voting - but had more yards/compl/tds than Peyton)
(stats)
1997 Heisman Trophy Voting | College Football at Sports-Reference.com
3. Tim Couch was setting the field on fire and many thought he was the front-runner for the Heisman in '98. He was actually 4th in voting in 98 - but passed for more than 4200 yards. Ricky Williams from Tx won - but passed for less than 1/2 the yardage.
(stats)
1998 Heisman Trophy Voting | College Football at Sports-Reference.com
So here's the deal....
There was NO WAY the powers that be were going to allow 3-white QBs -from the south - to win the Heisman Trophy 3 years in a row. NO. FREAKIN. WAY.
So Peyton got screwed in '97.
That is when I started calling it the "Affirmative Action Trophy", began hating E$PN for it's agenda and propaganda and couldn't possibly care less on who has won it since.
ESPN did the same thing with the BCS replacing it with a model that favored more advertising revenue.