Matt Ryan, Heisman Candidate? Part III: Why Matty Won't Win

Between now and Friday, we will be doing a little something we're calling Matt Ryan, Heisman Candidate?. It will be a 4 part series with one post each day. The schedule is Analyzing the Losses (Tuesday), Ryan at the Turn (Wednesday), Why Matty Won't Win (Thursday), and Why Matty Will Win (Friday). Here is Part III:

There are plenty of experts who are quick to declare the Ryan For Heisman campaign dead. They don't seem to go into alot of detail, instead the just point to the 3 picks that Ryan threw against Florida State. Here are 8 reasons the BC signal-caller will not walk out of Times Square with the stiff-arm trophy. Tomorrow we will be back with 12 reasons why he will.

1) His stats are not great. Ryan has a passer rating of 129.47, good for 60th in the nation.
2) Ryan does not play for a traditional power. Conventional wisdom is that in order to win the Heisman Trophy, a player has to come from a traditional power like Ohio State, Texas or USC or he has to be far and away better than the competition.
3) #12 played two uneven games on national television. Ryan had 2 chances to blow voters away, against Virginia Tech and against Florida State, he did not take full advantage of either opportunity.
4) There are too many other similar candidates. Voters will have plenty of choices including Dixon, Tebow, Daniel, McFadden and Hart. At this point, it is Dixon and everyone else. Ryan lost all of the separation that he had spent 2 months creating.
5) The perceived weakness of the ACC. Critics will point to the supposed lack of competition in the conference as one of the big reasons for Ryan's success.
6) The perceived weakness of BC's schedule. Even when the Eagles ventured out of conference, they didn't exactly have the toughest opponents.
7) Ryan stumbled at the wrong time. Heisman hopefuls are like national title contenders in that it is much better to trip early and get it out of the way. A meltdown on the first Saturday in November is going to stick with voters more than it would have in early October.
8) BC is not in the NC picture. One of the reasons why Ryan was on the radar of most experts was that Boston College was in the driver's seat for the BCS title game. Now that the perfect season is over, the Eagles will be an afterthought for at least the next week.