Excuse me ... Watson's regular season stats: 3700 yards and 30 TDs passing. Wins head to head against FSU and Deondre Francois, UNC and Mitch Trubisky, Virginia Tech and Jerod Evans, Louisville and Lamar Jackson, and I will even include South Carolina and Jake Bentley, as the Gamecocks were a very hot team down the stretch (largely because of the play of Bentley) as well as over Sugar Bowl team Auburn. No other player in the country had a resume like that. It wasn't even close. Even the game that Clemson LOST was a shootout with Watson having 580 passing yards. Meaning that he didn't suffer the types of embarrassing losses to the likes of Houston and Kentucky that Jackson did. Watson actually had a better year this season than last season! It is just that Clemson decided that he would run the ball less in order to keep him healthy, because Watson was injury-prone his first 2 seasons. (That was why they lost the Pitt game: Watson had 580 passing yards but only 8 rushing yards and threw 3 INTs as a result).
Lamar Jackson put up the best passing/rushing stats of the regular season. (Well actually, not really. Quinton Flowers of USF did - and for an 11-2 team at that - but just didn't get the hype due to playing in the AAC.) But Watson was the better player, as he proved during the head to head matchup with Jackson. In fact, Watson was a better player LAST YEAR than Jackson was this year.
The decision to give Jackson the Heisman was unprecedented. They gave the Heisman to a guy who lost head to head against another candidate with similar stats, AND who played in the same conference and lost the conference championship to that guy, who also put his team in position to play for the national title. It was nothing like Tim Tebow in 2007, who didn't play another Heisman candidate and was never in contention for anything. Now you can certainly argue that Clemson had a better team around Watson ... except that Clemson's defense wasn't that great. Even against Alabama they gave up 31 points! You can hold Watson's turnovers against him - most did, and that was likely why Watson didn't win the Heisman - but Jackson had a ton of turnovers in the games that he lost also. But goodness ... Peyton Manning never won the Heisman because he couldn't beat Danny Wuerffel at Florida. Watson was undefeated against Jackson and Louisville and still lost. Doesn't make any sense. Jackson won because early in the season ESPN hyped him as "the next Michael Vick." Except that ... Vick was MUCH FASTER, had a much stronger arm, and did not play in a stat-friendly spread offense. (Virginia Tech's offense wasn't pro-style, but it was a traditional dropback I-formation 2-back scheme with some option mixed in.) Put Vick in Louisville's system and the guy rewrites the NCAA record books.
Jackson has the Heisman, but there isn't anyone who watched Jackson against his 4 most talented foes this season and watched Watson against his 4 most talented foes (whether regular season or postseason) who would pick Jackson over Watson. (And yes, that does include the Louisville-Clemson matchup.) Bottom line: Watson was a 5 star recruit, Jackson was a 4 star recruit, and it was for very valid reasons. I look forward to seeing the Watson-Jackson battles in the NFL - hopefully they will be drafted by teams in the same NFL division or at least are in the same conference so they can play regularly - but on the college level, Watson was the better player with the better career and it wasn't close. Jackson had better (rushing) stats, but stats aren't everything. Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees consistently have/had better stats than Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger. To tell the truth, Matt Ryan and Matt Stafford have better stats than Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger! And keeping the comparison within dual threat QBs, Cam Newton generally has better stats than Russell Wilson and Dak Prescott. Yet which one would you rather have? Exactly.
