EA Sports NCAA Football 13 was released on Tuesday, featuring a strong new touch passing system and a handful of other new features. Chief among them is Heisman Challenge mode, where you can play as several recent college football legends and put them on any team you choose.
So this got us thinking: which former SEC Heisman winner would you have most wanted to see play for Tennessee?
We used everything after 1980 for frame of reference, and with apologies to George Rogers and Mark Ingram, ain't nobody picking either of those guys over the other two backs in this poll. I'm also admittedly not including Danny Wuerffel out of pure spite, because to say you wanted Wuerffel would mean you didn't want Manning, and we won't be entertaining that notion thank you very much.
But we will definitely entertain these four:
Herschel Walker, 1982: Already familiar with Knoxville having left a Bill Bates-sized hole in it two years ago, Walker would bring one of the best college careers of all time to Neyland Stadium. I'm a little too young for Herschel's college days, but the reverence with which people 'round these parts still speak of him leads one to believe the hype. Walker certainly could've helped a UT squad that finished 6-5-1 with the dubious honor of losing to Duke and Vanderbilt in the same season, a blow softened by the first win over Alabama in a dozen years.
Bo Jackson, 1985: The Herschel/Bo argument usually comes down to style preferences: if you want a straight up running back, it's Herschel. If you want quite possibly the greatest athlete of all time, Bo knows. Jackson is fondly remembered as the best video game athlete of our era (and the namesake of a sneaky good Game Boy title in 1991). In Knoxville he is fondly remembered for being shut down in UT's 38-20 win over #1 Auburn in September '85. Even if the '85 Vols didn't really need him to have one of the best seasons in the history of the program, he's more than deserving of a place in our poll.
Tim Tebow, 2007: The Vols won the East, but only after Tebow shredded them 59-20 in his coming out party as a starting quarterback. Tebow's legend has only grown since then, becoming one of the most popular and most celebrated college players of all time. No one liked this guy because he wasn't on their team, but in Gainesville I'd wager he was the closest thing to Peyton Manning we've seen in the league in the last fifteen years.
Cam Newton, 2010: This one was the closest to reality. We only got one year of Newton, which makes it a little harder to put his name next to the other three on this list, but I think we would've taken him in 2010 (you know, minus the cash payout).
Which of these four would you most liked to have seen play for Tennessee?
This post was sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 13. Check out the video for the game below.
EA SPORTS NCAA Football 13 TV: "Son" (via EASPORTS)