I think the Heisman is such a flawed award. I don't even know what qualifies someone as deserving anymore. Is it an MVP award or does it go to the best player (if you think about it those really are two totally different things)? Does your team need to be really good / nationally relevant in order for you to be the best player? Is it really just an award for the best offensive player on the best team? What role to do politics and campaigning play?
The Griffin case was such an anomaly in my opinion and, at the risk of being overly dramatic, such a reflection on our current media culture. To answer your second question, I don't know if Griffin deserved the Heisman a month ago, but he certainly would not have won it. In this, "what have you done for me lately," 24 hour news cycle, immediate gratification culture that we live in it is apparently more important to be scheduled to play on the last weekend of the season than it is to actually be the best player. It's also apparently very helpful, if you going to lose, to do it early in the season when people aren't paying close attention and won't remember.
Luck was punished by a couple of things. First, he didn't play on the last Saturday of the season so he wasn't "fresh" in voters minds. (This is totally mind boggling to me, the kid has been an unstoppable machine for three years but by virtue of not playing one more game before the votes were due he's all of a sudden not as good as a QB from fucking Baylor? I digress...) Stanford lost to Oregon on national TV and he threw a costly interception. (Never mind the 50+ points his defense allowed.) Other than that game Stanford's games weren't broadcast nationally very often and by virtue of playing in California many of their games started late on the east coast. That relative lack of exposure and one notable failure seemingly created this perception that he wasn't quite as good as he was last year. Whether that's true or not is debatable but if Stanford beat Oregon and played in the Pac-12 championship game Luck is your Heisman winner, guaranteed.
If you look at Griffin's, and maybe more importantly Baylor's season you'll see what I mean. As I said above Luck was punished for losing on national TV to Oregon on November 5th. That was Stanford's only loss. Baylor has three losses, K-State, Oklahoma State, and ... wait for it ... A&M (yup you read that right). And in case you forgot (I did) they didn't just lose to A&M, they got demolished 55-28. They also got thumped by Oklahoma State 59-24. So what's the difference? Baylor's last loss was October 29th at OK-State, a week before Stanford's loss. It was on TV but it was regional coverage on ABC at 2:30 PM, meaning viewers on the east and west coasts could have been watching something else. The entire college football world watched Luck lose to Oregon but very few watched (and even fewer remember) Griffin get crushed in Stillwater, nobody remembers anything about the A&M or K-State losses ... and that makes him more deserving of the Heisman? Baylor lost three times in one month, Stanford lost once all year... 'Splain to me how the "Luck lost the Heisman against Oregon" argument makes any sense?
As you can probably deduce I think Luck got screwed and is the better player. Griffin was sort of the Newt Gingrich of the Heisman race, showed up late, caught fire, didn't screw up publicly, and was on TV when it mattered. Perhaps a better analogy is Spaz's hiring at BC. What were his distinguishing characteristics? He was there, he was loyal, he wasn't going to leave, he had a ton of experience, Gene D. loved him. All of those are helpful but should they be the only reason you hire someone? No. What were Griffin's distinguishing characteristics? He played well in a game on December 2nd, he didn't lose on national TV, he didn't lose after Halloween, and his team beat Oklahoma and Texas on TV.
Do those things really make someone the best football player in the country? Absolutely not, but they do answer the question, what have you done for me lately?
As for the NFL part of your question, I think there is almost no chance to Colts even consider Griffin. Think about their successes of late. They have all been due to the ability of a very traditional pocket passer, I don't see them trying to change their entire system to fit Griffin's style, especially not when a better player is available that makes more sense. Griffin is going to go high in the draft (he should send Cam Newton a thank-you note) but where the voters failed to have any perspective on the Heisman the NFL has the luxury of time to actually look at them and determine who the better player is based on....you know... PLAYING. Not arbitrary scheduling and flukes of TV coverage.
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