With all due respect to the quarterbacks at Missouri, West Virginia and Hawaii, the Heisman Trophy race appears to be between Tim Tebow and Darren McFadden

Tebow is the first player in NCAA history to throw for 20 touchdowns and run for 20 in a season. Bob Rosato/SI

By Phil Taylor

Tim Tebow, the tackle-breaking, touchdown-making Florida quarterback whose fans make up absurd jokes about his all-encompassing greatness ("When Google can't find something, it asks Tim Tebow for help"), does his best work in a crowd. It can be a gaggle of Gators fans, to whom he is so accommodating that he has been known to ask the football staff for a few more minutes to sign autographs after a game, or a cluster of potential tacklers, who tend to scatter like shards of glass when he comes crashing through, or even a gathering of prison inmates, many of whom were so moved by Tebow's inspirational talk during a recent visit that they came up and hugged him afterward.

Darren McFadden, the shoulder-faking, history-making Arkansas tailback who caused yet another drastic resketching of the national championship picture by leading the Razorbacks to a triple-overtime 50-48 upset of No. 1 LSU last Friday, is more at home in open space, which tends to be plentiful because there are so few defenders who can stay with him. "I've seen lots of guys on defense who think they've got him all lined up, that he won't be able to get around the end, for instance, and then he just makes a move, accelerates and he's gone," says fellow Arkansas runner Felix Jones. "D-Mac's speed gets him to spots you don't think he can get to."

The outcome of the most oft-changing, closely contested Heisman Trophy race in years will be a testament to either Tebow's knack for standing out in a crowd or McFadden's ability to run clear of one. After the wild twists and turns of a season in which a new Heisman favorite seemed to step forward every Saturday, Tebow made his typical emergence from the pack in recent weeks to become the front-runner to take home the award on Dec. 8 -- until, that is, McFadden applied pressure with his customary late burst. McFadden slashed through South Carolina for an SEC-record-tying 321 rushing yards in a 48-36 victory on Nov. 3 and followed that with 206 yards and three touchdowns on 32 carries (as well as a touchdown pass) in the shocking win over the Tigers. "He certainly had a Heisman performance today," said LSU coach Les Miles. But the 6' 3", 225-pound Tebow, a sophomore, has been just as impressive to coaches who have been burned by his rare combination of rugged running and pinpoint passing. "I've seen quarterbacks who can run, but not with that kind of power and toughness," says Georgia coach Mark Richt. "He's a freak of nature."

Both players were at their best over the Thanksgiving weekend, which turned out to be a microcosm of the ever-shifting Heisman race. Within a 48-hour period the consensus shifted from Tebow's being the obvious choice on Thursday, to McFadden's overtaking him on Friday, to Tebow's perhaps reemerging as the favorite on Saturday when he answered McFadden's virtuoso performance against LSU with his own impressive work in a 45-12 victory over Florida State. Tebow threw for three touchdowns and ran for two more (he played on after breaking his nonpassing hand on a third-quarter TD dash), leaving the voters, who must turn in their ballots by Dec. 4, with the equivalent of choosing between a hot fudge sundae and a banana split -- no matter which one they pick, they'll regret having to pass up the other.

McFadden and Tebow are reverse images of each other. Tebow isn't the runner that McFadden is, but he has rushed for 838 yards and 22 touchdowns this season, and McFadden isn't the passer that Tebow is, but he has thrown four touchdown passes operating out of Arkansas's WildHog formation, in which he takes a direct snap. In fact, McFadden's TD toss against LSU, on which he faked a run up the middle, then stopped and tossed the ball to fullback Peyton Hillis, looked like an imitation of a similar play Tebow pulled off against LSU last year.

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