As I said in my last Heisman article of the season (Final Heisman 2009 Ballot), "I have a feeling Ingram is going to win this thing but he didn't have a more impressive season than Gerhart." In the closest Heisman vote ever, Ingram edged Gerhart by 28 points, getting 227 first-place votes to Gerhart's 222. The previous closest vote occurred in 1985, when Bo Jackson (Auburn) edged Iowa's Chuck Long by 45 points. The final tally tells reveals a number of things regarding the final 2009 Heisman vote.

Voters were not swayed by Tebow's career legacy, as the Florida QB was a distant fifth in the final voting with just 43 first-place votes and 390 total points (914 behind Ingram). Also, one can surmise that Colt McCoy's terrible performance in the Big 12 championships game (combined with Suh's great effort), cost the Texas QB this year's Heisman. McCoy finished third in the voting, 19 first-place votes and 130 points behind runner-up Gerhart and 24 first-place votes and 158 points behind Ingram.

Considering Suh would wind up with 161 first-place votes and won the Southwest region (Gerhart won the Far West with Ingram winning the four other regions), it's reasonable to assume that McCoy would have gotten a good portion of Suh's votes if not for the two players' disparate Big 12 championship game performances.

While no story was bigger in CFB last week than the Heisman, Brian Kelly taking the job at Notre Dame was a close second. The phrase "only in America" certainly applies to Mr Kelly. Back in 2003, Kelly won the second of back-to-back of Division II National Championships at Grand Valley State. In his 13 years as head coach at Grand Valley, the Lakers won five conference titles and made six Division II Playoff appearances, going 118-35-2.

Kelly became the head coach at Central Michigan after the departure of Mike DeBord following the 2003 season. Kelly inherited a team with limited success, as CMU had won more than three games only once in the previous four seasons. CMU would finish with a 4-7 record in 2004 but in 2005, the team went 6-5, the first winning season in seven years for the Chippewas. In his third season, the Chippewas posted a 9-4 record, winning the MAC Championship and qualifying for the Motor City Bowl. However, Kelly left to accept the Cincinnati coaching vacancy three days after CMU won the 2006 MAC Championship game and did not coach CMU in its bowl game. Sound familiar?

Kelly was named Cincinnati's head coach on December 3, 2006. Both Cincinnati and Central Michigan were preparing for bowl appearances so while Kelly was in Cincinnati preparing the Bearcats, much of his staff remained at Central Michigan to coach the Chippewas. Following Central Michigan's win in the Motor City Bowl, most of his staff joined him in Cincinnati, where they went on to coach Cincinnati to a 27-24 victory over Western Michigan in that year's International Bowl. Kelly had also led Central Michigan to a win over Western Michigan during the 2006 regular season. This gave him the unique distinction of being the only NCAA coach to beat the same team twice in one season while coaching two different teams. No wonder Notre Dame wanted him?

While I'm being more than a little facetious, there is nothing funny about Kelly's accomplishments at Cincinnati. In his first full season at Cincinnati (2007), Kelly led the Bearcats to the school's second-ever 10-win season at 10-3 (its first came in 1949) and a top-25 ranking which included a 31-21 win in the PapaJohns.com Bowl over Southern Miss. Kelly then led Cincinnati to its first-ever outright Big East title in 2008 with an 11-2 regular season mark (6-1 in the Big East).

The Bearcats would play in the Orange Bowl vs the ACC champion, Virginia Tech on January 1, 2009 but lost 20-7. However, it marked the school's first-ever BCS bowl appearance and or major bowl appearance for a school which first began playing football in 1885. With just one defensive starter returning in 2009, few expected the Bearcats to win the Big East title in 2009. The Bearcats began the year unranked in all the preseason polls (as did every other Big East school) but Kelly's Bearcats reeled off 12 straight victories and finished the regular season as one of five unbeaten schools.

The Bearcats finished the regular season ranked fourth in both the AP and coaches' poll (highest-ever for the school) but finished No. 3 in the final BCS standings. Cincinnati will play Florida in this year's Sugar Bowl. However, once again, Kelly is "on the move." On December 10, it was announced that Kelly would replace Charlie Weis as Notre Dame's head coach. He won't coach the Bearcats in the Sugar Bowl and like when he left CMU, his assistant coaches at Cincinnati will stay with the Bearcats to coach them against Florida, before some of those coaches will undoubtedly join Kelly in South Bend.

How familiar is this guy's "M.O?" However, it's hard to argue with Notre Dame's decision, as while Kelly was going 34-6 at Cincinnati these last three years (includes that 2006 bowl win), Charlie Weis was going a pathetic 16-21 at CFB's most famous football institution. More importantly, Notre Dame has found it difficult to recruit these days with its tough academic standards. These recently released reports regarding Cincinnati's football program hardly went unnoticed by the Notre Dame "higher-ups."

Among the honors that Cincinnati football has achieved in 2009 is the highest academic rating among teams in the top 10 of the current BCS standings, according to the latest Graduation Success Rates, released by the NCAA. Cincinnati checked in with a 75 percent NCAA graduation rate and a 71 percent federal government rate, the only team in the BCS top-10 to surpass the 70 percent plateau in both. I wish Kelly and Notre Dame well in 2010 and beyond.

However, what would have happened if Texas hadn't edged Nebraska in the Big 12 championship game? Considering that Cincinnati leap-frogged TCU in the final BCS standings, it seems logical that if Texas had lost to Nebraska, Cincinnati, not TCU, would have finished No. 2 in the final BCS standings, meaning the Bearcats would be headed to Pasadena on January 7 to meet Alabama in the BCS championship game.

Under that scenario, could Kelly really have taken the Notre Dame job and miss what could be a "once in a lifetime opportunity" of playing for the national championship? That scenario sets up my Thursday column when I debunk the opinion that the current BCS system has somehow "ruined CFB."

Good luck, Larry.