I'm not sure why he won it. Sure, he was the QB on the #1 team, but for whatever reason, voters kind of shat on RBs that year. If Faulk wasn't your guy (easy schedule), Georgia's Garrison Hearst ran for 1600 yards and 19 TDs. He was a beast. Hell, Reggie Brooks of ND averaged 8.0 ypc!!!
The oddity of that particular season was the utter lack of QBs having a big season. Florida's Shane Matthews was 2nd in the country in TD passes....with 23. 23!!!! That's so low!!! But he threw a ton of INTs and Florida stunk (9-4) that year.
Charlie Ward was his great, exciting self, but he too, threw a bunch of INTs.
There were no big-time QBs having a big year. Plenty had a better rating than Torretta, but most of them were game-managers on run-first teams. Grbac at Michigan, Graves at Syracuse, those guys. The list of QBs that year has got to be rare....everyyone had like 20 TD passes, but with 15 INTs.
The thing that probably put Torretta over the top was his lack of INTs....only 7. The leader in passing TDs was Jimmy Klingler of Houston, but he committed a grave sin: he wasn't his brother. David Klingler was throwing 50 TD passes just 2 years before.
If 1992 happened today, I think a defensive player or even lineman would win it.
Look at the OL on the All-American team that year: Aaron Taylor (the ND one), Shields, Roaf, Kennedy.
Defensively, 2 players finished in the top 10 for Heisman: LB Marvin Jones of FSU and Miami LB Micheal Barrow. Plus you had Curry & Copeland from Bama.
I just think the RBs with gaudy stats didn't have enough carries, the QBs didn't throw enough TDs, and a defensive player wasn't something they could wrap their head around yet.
