default-cbs-image

Baker Mayfield won the Heisman last week. Odds are that you know this already and that if you hadn't figured it out on your own before the award was officially announced, you learned about it while not watching the Heisman Trophy ceremony on ESPN. That's because last week's Heisman Trophy ceremony was the lowest-rated in the history of the show on ESPN, breaking the 2016 record.

Now, I don't care about ESPN's ratings. What I do care about is the Heisman Trophy. While I was growing up, it was one of the biggest prizes in sports to me. While championships were the ultimate, I saw the Heisman as a bigger accomplishment than an MLB, NBA or NFL MVP. So when I became a voter for the award last season, I was thrilled.

But I also worry about the award. In my mind, low television ratings aren't the problem with the Heisman right now, but a symptom. There's a school of thought that interest in the award has waned the last couple years because, for the most part, there wasn't much drama to the award. Lamar Jackson was the runaway favorite for nearly the entire 2016 season, and Mayfield had a chokehold on the award for weeks before finally getting his hands on it.

I don't doubt this plays a role, but it's only part of the problem. I think the bigger problem is the College Football Playoff, as that dominates college football discussion over the last two months of the season.

Just looking at my own experiences, I've done more than my fair share of radio and television hits since joining CBS Sports. Before the CFP came into existence, I would get asked a few of the same questions every time I did a hit, particularly late in the season.

Those questions were: who will play in the BCS title game, do you think there will ever be a playoff, and who do you think deserves the Heisman.

That's no longer the case. Now I'm asked about the CFP, the CFP some more, a couple of other CFP questions, and then whether or not I believe the CFP should expand. The Heisman rarely comes up in conversation, and when it does, it's usually just a "final question, who's gonna win the Heisman?" I say a name, and the segment wraps up.

This is a problem for the Heisman, but it's a problem that could be easily solved with a few simple adjustments.

1. Allow voters to discuss their ballots beforehand. Heisman voters used to be allowed to do this only a few short years ago. During the season, websites and newspapers would take straw polls of Heisman voters to find out where things stood. There'd be stories written about the results, and it kept people talking about the award all season long. The Heisman then mandated its voters stopped doing this. The reasoning behind it was that it spoiled the outcome, and drama was desired.

Well, there hasn't been much drama in the Silent Age of Heisman Voting, but even if there had been, I think the rule is a disservice to the award.

In this age of social media, when we are taking in more information on a daily basis, and doing it at lightning speed, it's easy for something to be forgotten. Without as much discussion about the Heisman going on, that's exactly what is happening to the award. Voters should be allowed to discuss their ballots just to put the word Heisman in your Twitter timeline, on your Facebook feed, on Instagram, everything. This is a time when more information is available than ever before, and by silencing voters, the Heisman is going against this grain and suffering for it.

2. Allow voters to vote for five players. There are currently three spots available on a Heisman ballot. There are times when that's all you need because there are only three viable candidates. Hell, this year you could argue there was only one, but that made it more difficult to fill out the rest of my ballot. I knew I was going to put Baker Mayfield at No. 1 and Lamar Jackson at No. 2, but that third spot had plenty of potential suitors. I would have liked to include players like Rashaad Penny and Saquon Barkley (I went with Bryce Love) on my ballot because they deserved the recognition for outstanding seasons.

Other than making things easier on voters, though, expanding the ballot would also lead to more finalists for the award, and more candidates. The more available spots there are, the more motivation there is for schools to put together Heisman campaigns for their players. The more campaigning there is, the more Heisman discussion.

The more discussion, the more attention.

3. Allow the public to vote. Now, I'm not saying every college football fan gets an equal vote, but there should be a fan vote. Whether the Heisman would want to break the entire fan vote into one actual Heisman vote or my preferred method of doing it regionally just like it does with current Heisman voters, it needs to happen.

If fans have an actual impact on who wins the award -- even if it's a minor one -- that gives them more reason to care. I mean, look at how fan voting for All-Star games helps drive interest in those games on the professional level. Doing it for the Heisman gives fans some skin in the game.

These are just three ideas that would expand the award's exposure in a new college football landscape, and it's one I hope the Heisman Trust considers because the award is important to me and I don't want to see it become an afterthought.