Mariota tells Oregon: No Heisman hype

Early last fall when a visitor noted the life-sized mannequin in the display window of the campus Duck Store modeling his popular No. 8 jersey, Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota lowered his head, humbly.

"Does it have to be in the front window?" Mariota asked.

So we probably shouldn’t be surprised that the two-time All-Pac-12 QB is said to have declined, however politely, the school’s offer of a Heisman Trophy campaign on his behalf for the 2014 season.

Name in lights? Face on billboards? Exploits on DVD? 

Aw shucks, no.

"We’re choosing not to go forward with anything right now," a Ducks spokesman said. 

It isn’t like Mariota isn’t already in the way-too-early Heisman conversation. USA Today and the respected HeismanPundit.com have both listed him as the top competitor to Florida State’s Jameis Winston. Oddsmakers post him as a 7-2 pick. 

In 2001 the Ducks used $300,000 of donated money to erect a 10-story, 80-foot-wide full color poster on the side of a building in New York City promoting quarterback Joey Harrington as "Joey Heisman."  

With Mariota last year they let his deeds speak for him. And, until Nov. 7, they spoke eloquently on behalf of the redshirt sophomore from Saint Louis School, who was 20-1 as a starter and the Heisman frontrunner. 

But a knee injury in the first half of the UCLA victory and subsequent losses to Stanford and Arizona knocked him out of consideration.

By the time he had recovered his mobility to beat Oregon State in the regular-season finale and Texas in the Alamo Bowl, it was too late.

You get the feeling that Oregon officials were taken aback by the sudden descent of his Heisman prospects last fall. That he wasn’t invited to New York as a finalist was undoubtedly a wake-up call for 2014.

This season, with a healthy, more experienced Mariota, the Ducks figure to be the early-season Pac-12 favorites and a top-five team. That’s a lot for Oregon — which has never had a Heisman Trophy winner — to sell, and who better to be the out-front face of its program?

And, maybe, too, there is an appreciation that Mariota has chosen to return to Eugene rather than take an early shot at the NFL Draft.

Mariota, true to his nature, said last season that all the Heisman talk was "just outside noise" in the ear hole of his helmet, that winning was the goal, and he was just part of a team. He’ll still tell you that, and the fact that he operates by those principles has a lot to do with where he is.

The genuine humility, his teammates will tell you, is what makes him who he is.  

But you have to believe at some point, whether it be this spring or early in the summer, that Oregon officials will sit down with Mariota again. This time they will appeal to his selflessness. Do it for the team, they might implore.

And put that way he’ll be hard-pressed to say no to being displayed in the biggest front window yet.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.