Commentary

Montee Ball deserves the Heisman

The Wisconsin running back has outperformed Luck, RG3 and Richardson this season

Updated: December 9, 2011, 9:46 AM ET

By KC Joyner | ESPN Insider

At this moment, the biggest travesty in college football is thought to be how the Oklahoma State Cowboys got shut out of the BCS title game.

As strong of an argument as the Cowboys have (and they should have been given a shot at the LSU Tigers for the national championship), their complaints are nothing compared to the ones Wisconsin Badgers running back Montee Ball should have toward the small amount of consideration he is being given for the Heisman Trophy.

Ball did get an invite to New York City for the trophy presentation, but, as noted in Ryan McCrystal's Heisman Predictor series (a system developed by McCrystal that uses historical trends and statistical models to determine which Heisman candidate voters are most likely to give the award to), Ball has "little chance of cracking the top three in the voting" because the voters don't tend to place running backs at the top of their lists unless their teams win a national championship, and the Badgers have two losses.

But even when taking into account those two losses, a deeper look at the numbers reveals that Ball is the most deserving Heisman candidate of 2011.

To read the full argument for why Montee Ball deserves to win the Heisman, sign up for ESPN Insider.