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RaceBannon
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grantland.com/the-triangle/washington-huskies-shaq-thompson-heisman-chances/
Which brings us back to Saturday night, when Washington will kick off as a 21-point underdog to the resurgent Ducks. No. 9 Oregon has won 10 in a row in the series, including six in a row in Autzen Stadium. As the cliché goes, to be the man, Thompson has to beat the man: A dominant, season-defining effort against Mariota would be the litmus test for whether Thompson can be taken seriously down the stretch as anything more than an especially gifted curiosity. It’s a long shot, perhaps, but it’s undeniably a shot. A big, SportsCenter-worthy play in a Washington win — on offense or defense, and preferably both — will cement him into the national consciousness as the reliable merchant of havoc that he is, and will spice up a middling Heisman race by orders of magnitude.
The most important ingredient in that scenario is the win. Before Thompson’s arrival, in 2012, Washington hadn’t been relevant in the Pac-10/12 in a decade, and was stuck in a rut of 7-6 campaigns under coach Steve Sarkisian. Last year, though, the Huskies turned in a 9-4 record, their best since 2000, and they have the look of an awakening power under Sarkisian’s successor, Chris Petersen. For the program, breaking the losing streak in Eugene would mark another crucial turning point in that trajectory; and as the current face of the program, Thompson’s profile would elevate dramatically as one of the drivers of that success. Defenders with Heisman pretensions thrive on these narratives as much as quarterbacks.
Which brings us back to Saturday night, when Washington will kick off as a 21-point underdog to the resurgent Ducks. No. 9 Oregon has won 10 in a row in the series, including six in a row in Autzen Stadium. As the cliché goes, to be the man, Thompson has to beat the man: A dominant, season-defining effort against Mariota would be the litmus test for whether Thompson can be taken seriously down the stretch as anything more than an especially gifted curiosity. It’s a long shot, perhaps, but it’s undeniably a shot. A big, SportsCenter-worthy play in a Washington win — on offense or defense, and preferably both — will cement him into the national consciousness as the reliable merchant of havoc that he is, and will spice up a middling Heisman race by orders of magnitude.
The most important ingredient in that scenario is the win. Before Thompson’s arrival, in 2012, Washington hadn’t been relevant in the Pac-10/12 in a decade, and was stuck in a rut of 7-6 campaigns under coach Steve Sarkisian. Last year, though, the Huskies turned in a 9-4 record, their best since 2000, and they have the look of an awakening power under Sarkisian’s successor, Chris Petersen. For the program, breaking the losing streak in Eugene would mark another crucial turning point in that trajectory; and as the current face of the program, Thompson’s profile would elevate dramatically as one of the drivers of that success. Defenders with Heisman pretensions thrive on these narratives as much as quarterbacks.
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