Stanford has sent many players to New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony. In the last eight years, they’ve all come up just short. There was Toby Gerhart in 2009, Andrew Luck in 2010 and 2011, and Christian McCaffrey in 2015, all three finished second in the voting. Gerhart and McCaffrey finished behind Alabama running backs Mark Ingram and Derrick Henry, respectively. Luck lost to scintillating quarterbacks in Cam Newton and Robert Griffin III.
This year Stanford has another player in the running for the Heisman — Bryce Love, who trails only Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield in the latest iteration of ESPN’s Heisman Watch. And Stanford is trying something new, as the Cardinal took to Facebook’s Watch platform to promote the star running back with a new episodic series called “Heisman Love.”
The show follows Love as the team prepares for the “Big Game” against Cal and a top-10 matchup with Notre Dame. Heath Trabue, Stanford’s Director of Video Services, said the goal of the show was to “find places where we can add value, add insight.”
“There are plenty of highlight shows out there, we wanted to showcase Bryce and all the things that he does,” Trabue said.
Stanford chose Facebook Watch as the medium to tap into the social media network’s reach. “We are always looking for new, interesting ways to promote our student-athletes,” Trabue said. “We want to capitalize on the Heisman discussion taking place on Facebook.”’
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Love is a leader for the Cardinal. “He doesn’t speak often, but when he does, it’s all eyes and ears on Bryce,” Trabue said.
Just look at the one game Love didn’t play this season — a 15-14 win over cellar-dwelling Oregon State. The Beavers didn’t win a single game in the Pac-12 this year, and the 15 points given up to the Cardinal was the Beavers’ best defensive performance by 20 points. That game shows the difference Love makes to the Stanford offense.
Love still isn’t 100 percent healthy, but it hasn’t stopped him from topping 100 yards in three of Stanford’s last four games. Since the injury, Stanford has wins over top-10 teams in Washington and Notre Dame and will take on USC in the Pac-12 championship game on Friday. “My favorite part of this series has been Bryce’s resilience,” Trabue said. “It has been his attitude and positivity going through that difficult injury.”
As of right now, Mayfield is the favorite for the Heisman but Trabue hopes this show helps make a case for Love to Heisman voters. Even if he doesn’t come home with hardware, Love continues a long line of successful Stanford football players, both on, and off the field.