Heisman history – viewed with hindsight’s perfect perception – shows that mistakes have been made.

“There have been a lot of bad ones,” says Dan Jenkins, a college football historian. “There are way too many voters (923 this year), and 800 of ’em are idiots. There are too many voters who don’t have a passion for the game.

“Radio announcers should be barred. Period.”

Notre Dame has more Heisman winners (seven) than any other school, but an argument can be made that two of its winners were gifts.

Paul Hornung won the award in 1956 and is the only player to win a Heisman playing for a losing team. And in 1964, quarterback John Huarte was a preseason nobody who wound up with the Heisman.

“Paul Hornung was a hell of a player, but good God they were 2-8,” Jenkins said. “In 1964, you had Joe Namath, Tucker Fredrickson, Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus who might have had better years.”

In 1956, Hornung passed for 917 yards with three touchdowns and 13 interceptions. Tennessee’s Johnny Majors, for a Heisman runner-up, had 1,101 yards of total offense. And Syracuse’s Jim Brown averaged 6.2 yards per carry and scored 106 points.

Huarte threw for 2,062 yards, 16 TDs and 11 interceptions in ’64. Sayers averaged 5.2 yards per carry, 27.8 yards per kickoff return and 9.2 per punt return. Namath completed 65 percent of his passes in leading Alabama to the national championship.

“Over the years, I think the criteria has changed,” said Chris Fowler, the host of ESPN’s Heisman show. “Back in the day, there were far fewer schools that could send guys to New York as a Heisman candidate. In the last few years, there’s more information out there and there have been Heisman finalists from Alcorn State, Marshall, Utah.”

Quite often it appears the voters have voted with guilty consciences and given “makeup” Heismans.

Ohio State’s Howard Cassady won the 1955 Heisman (instead of TCU’s Jim Swink) even though Cassady’s statistics were better in 1954.

Steve Owens’ numbers in 1969 were about the same as his 1968 statistics, but the voters went with Owens over Purdue’s Mike Phipps.

In 1980, Herschel Walker gained 1,616 yards rushing and scored 15 TDs for national champion Georgia but finished third in the voting. In 1982, Walker (1,752 yards, 5.2 per carry, 17 TDs) won the Heisman even though SMU’s Eric Dickerson had similar statistics – 1,617 yards, 7.0 yards a carry, 17 TDs.

“I think Eric Crouch won the Heisman in 2001 because the voters wanted to make up for Tommie Frazier not winning it in 1995,” Jenkins said.

“The criteria is intentionally vague,” Fowler says. “It’s frustrating to some people. What does it mean, ‘most outstanding?’ The most valuable? The best? That’s up to the voters.

“This is America, whoever gets the most votes wins. Most of the time, anyway. : The Heisman doesn’t have any hanging chads.”

As Jenkins once wrote about the bronzed, stiff-arming trophy: “Few awards in college football cause more melodrama than the Heisman Memorial Trophy, an award that is supposed to go to the outstanding player in the country each year, and sometimes does.”