Alabama Football: Najee’s Heisman snub might be a good thing

Najee Harris’s Heisman snub might actually be good for Alabama football.

Fans were frustrated when the list of Heisman finalists was released on Thursday. Even though Alabama football got two of the four finalists, Najee Harris was snubbed from the list. This is not fair to Najee Harris, but it might actually be a good thing for the Crimson Tide.

Heisman finalists are circumstantial. The committee makes the cut where there is an obvious drop in votes. Some years have three finalists, but some years have five. This year, they cut the list at four. That means that the gap between Najee Harris and fourth place was substantial, which helps the odds of Alabama’s other candidates.

While you would like to think that Heisman voters are unbiased, that is simply not true. This works both for and against the Crimson Tide. While there are some voters who will go out of their way to favor Alabama football players, others go out of their way to avoid them.

To put it simply, some voters won’t vote for an Alabama candidate at all. They would rather add Trevor Lawrence or Kyle Trask to the group. Some even voted for outside candidates with no shot of winning the Heisman. This means that there is a limited pool of potential votes to go to both DeVonta Smith and Mac Jones.

So, how does Najee’s snub come into play? This means that he did not receive many votes from that pool. If his piece of the pie was small enough to stay off the list of finalists, then there should be plenty of votes left to crown either Mac or Smitty the Heisman winner.

Even with voters choosing their top three as opposed to just one candidate, votes needed to consolidate for one or two Alabama football players. This shows that might have just happened. it’s not fair to Najee Harris, but I’m sure he would rather see a teammate win the Heisman than himself become a finalist.

All three of Alabama’s stars deserve the Heisman, and we have detailed why Najee should have won the award. However, this at least leaves a more realistic path for the two finalists from Tuscaloosa.