Ferd Lewis: If not for injury, UCF’s Milton might have been at the Heisman

NEW YORK >> As is the custom at Heisman Trophy media events, reporters wedge themselves, sometimes three and four deep, arrayed in round table fashion with one finalist at each table in a question-and-answer format.

Curiously, Friday there were three finalists, each perched at a table with their school’s logo, and one unmarked, unattended table.

While Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was discussing the remarkable emergence of Hawaii-produced quarterbacks across the college map, you couldn’t help but thinking that one of those players, McKenzie Milton, well could have been at table number four.

And the Mililani High graduate might have been except for that gruesome knee injury suffered last month in the second quarter of the University of Central Florida’s regular-season finale against rival South Florida that will necessitate upcoming reconstructive knee surgery.

With an opportunity to burnish his credentials in that game as well as the American Athletic Conference championship game the following week, you’d like to think that based upon the way his season was going he could — and would — have punched his ticket to New York as a Heisman finalist.

As it was, despite missing two and a half games (he sat out the East Carolina game in October with what was described as an ankle injury), Milton managed to finish sixth in this year’s year of the quarterback Heisman voting. It was the highest finish by a player from a school outside the Power Five conferences.

That’s up two places from 2017 when he burst on the scene leading the Knights to the first of two unbeaten regular seasons.

The nationally televised AAC championship game especially would have afforded him a prime, last-chance opportunity to state his case. And we know what a force last impressions on championship weekend meant, turning the tables for both the eventual Heisman winner, Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray, and Tagovailoa, the runner-up.

The betting is that with a guiding role in UCF’s nation-leading 25th consecutive victory, Milton would have attracted enough points to be named a finalist.

Voters select three players on their ballots with a 3-2-1 point value assigned. At least three players and as many as six are invited to Times Square as finalists with the field determined by how tightly the points are bunched after third place and beyond.

In this year’s case, with a rousing finish Milton could have climbed close enough to Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins Jr., who received 783 points for third place, to make the cut. As it was, Milton still earned four first-place votes, four for second-place and 19 for third.

Remember, too, that Milton had been in the thick of voting, reaching the semifinalist stage, for the Davey O’Brien, Walter Camp and Maxwell awards that Murray and Tagovailoa eventually divided up.

Milton would likely have had worthy statistics — he finished with 2,663 yards and 25 touchdowns passing and 307 yards and nine touchdowns running — to be in the conversation had he been able to play those last six quarters.

But more than statistics, Milton was a leader and a spunky symbol for UCF. At 5 feet 11 and 185 pounds, he led by gritty example rallying the Knights to unbeaten seasons and jabbing at the power structure that sought to ignore them.

In that, it is too bad Milton didn’t finish his season on the field and earn a place at the roundtable. Not just for him, but for college football.

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