Three more polls: Two for Bradford, one tied

The Tulsa World has polled 55 official H------ voters and found a slight lead for Sam Bradford.

Using the same point system as the Heisman Trophy (three points for a first-place vote, two for a second-place vote, and one for a third-place vote), Bradford received 22 first-place votes and finished with 120 points. The OU quarterback was named on 52 of the 55 ballots.

McCoy was second with 100 points and Tebow was a close third with 98 points. McCoy received fewer first-place votes (14) than Tebow (19), but the Texas quarterback was named on more ballots (53) than the reigning Heisman winner (50).

The Oklahoman also did their own poll of 100 official voters:

The winner: Sam Bradford.

The Oklahoma quarterback received 47 first-place votes and 226 points, beating out Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow. The Texas quarterback had 20 first-place votes and 172 points, while the Florida quarterback had 31 first-place votes and 164 points.

And in the battle of hometown papers, the Gainesville Sun polled 98 official voters and came up with a dead heat between Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford:

In a confidential poll, The Sun contacted 98 Heisman voters from across the six different voting regions (South, Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, Midwest and West) who agreed to tell us who they voted for. In the official Heisman balloting, first-place votes count for three points, second-place for two and third for one.

Using the same point system, Tebow and Bradford are tied with 194 points in The Sun's poll. Tebow received 44 first-place votes to Bradford's 26, with Bradford collecting more second and third-place votes. McCoy received 27 first-place votes and finished with 153 points.

Given that there are more than 900 Heisman voters nationwide, there is an obvious margin of error.

But the poll seems to indicate this could be one of the closest Heisman races in recent years. And that it's clearly a three-player race, withTebow and Bradford holding a slight edge on McCoy.

In The Sun's poll, Tebow received overwhelming support from his region (South), while Bradford basically split the vote with McCoy in his (Southwest). In the South,Tebow collected 18 of 20 first-place votes and 57 points, while Bradford received no first-place votes and 28 points.

Meanwhile, over at the Wall Street Journal's "Numbers Guy" blog, Carl Bialik is taking note of all the confusion -- and specifically notes Stiff Arm Trophy.

“I’ve been working on this thing for about 15 years, and it’s the closest I’ve seen it on the final poll,” said John Lindsay, sports editor of Scripps Howard, whose poll showed McCoy ahead with 42 points, Bradford in second with 41 and Tebow holding 34 points. ...

Votes for the Heisman, like those for political candidates, aren’t always logical. Chisholm said that the early ballots he collects tend to favor underdogs and regional favorites. In some years, these come in even before the regular season is over, but this year, with Tebow and Bradford both active on Saturday, nearly all votes were placed this week. ...

Chisholm acknowledged he was nervous about the balloting. “This will be the year that proves whether my method is a good one,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot to be gained by projecting a landslide.”

We'll keep working on our projection here, but I guess we'll all just have to watch on Saturday night -- something that I'm sure ESPN and the H------ Trust are very happy about.

Kari Chisholm | December 11, 2008 | Comment on This Post (0 so far) Permalink: Three more polls: Two for Bradford, one tied

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