Reggie Bush Decides to Forfeit Heisman Trophy

With the Heisman Trust set to meet on Tuesday night to discuss the implications of the NCAA ruling against Reggie Bush and USC, the former Trojan running back decided to pre-emptively forfeit the award, certainly concerned that the Heisman Trust would not find in his favor. Bush is now the first player in the history of the award to voluntarily give up the trophy.

Bush vowed to set up a trust to educate collegiate athletes about dealing with agents to help them avoid the poor decisions made by Bush that have made him persona non grata on the USC campus and robbed him of his prestigious award.

The Heisman Trust is now faced with a difficult and unprecented decision -- will they simply vacate the award and leave it without a recipient or award to former Texas quarterback Vince Young, who finished a distant second in the voting to Bush?

Young weighed in on the issue in an interview with ESPN's Hannah Storm:

I definitely want it, I definitely want it. But he won it fair and square definitely, and it's much respect to Reggie, man. He had a great career and he's already won a Super Bowl before me. I'm already mad about that.

But at the same time I am definitely happy for him, man, and he is definitely the Heisman Trophy winner for that year. But if they send it over to me I am not going to say no to it.

Mack Brown previously came out in support of Young receiving the trophy several weeks ago when the news broke that the Heisman Trust was considering taking the trophy away from Bush.

From this perspective, any talk of the award quickly becomes irritating -- it's a stupid popularity contest reflective of little but poor analysis and a general herd mentality. For Texas fans, Young has always and always will be the Real Heisman winner from that season and his performance in the national championship proved that he was the better, more impactful player and allowed him to come away with the more important trophy -- the crystal football.

That being said, if the Heisman Trust does award the trophy the Young, the university would surely embrace the opportunity to include it in any and all promotional materials and the prestige of the trophy would help in a variety of areas, most notably recruiting.

Thoughts?