The salient focus of this podcast episode is the exploration of Heisman Trophy winners who have transitioned to play in the Canadian Football League (CFL). We delve into the intriguing narrative of Billy Vessels, the 1952 Heisman recipient, who opted for a career in the CFL after a brief stint with the NFL. This episode elucidates the circumstances that led several Heisman winners to pursue opportunities in Canada, often as a means of revitalizing their careers. We examine the contrasting financial landscapes of the NFL and CFL during Vessels' era, highlighting how the allure of comparable compensation and additional opportunities influenced their decisions. Our guest, Timothy P. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com, provides invaluable insights into the lives and careers of these remarkable athletes, shedding light on their contributions to both leagues.

This chat stems from Tim's recent Tidbit titled: Billy Vessels and Heisman Winners in Canadian Football

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When we think of the best college football player of the year, we think of the Heisman Trophy.

But many of those do not make it in the NFL.

But they do in other leagues, including the Canadian Football League.

Timothy p. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com joins us to tell us about some of these great players that won the Heisman and played in the cfl.

Tim's up in just a moment to tell us all about it.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit of football history.

And welcome to another Tuesday of FootballArchaeology.comday where we get to talk to Tim Brown of that site about one of his great tidbits that he has coming out multiple times a week.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey, Darren, good seeing you again, as always.

Let's.

I think today's story, if I remember correctly, is brings back the old, old quote that you learned in U.S. history class in high school.

Go north, young man.

Go north.

Go north.

That's, that's good point.

And maybe that's a great segue into what your tidbit is that we're going to be talking about today that you had titled the Billy Vessels and the Heisman Winners in Canadian Football.

So maybe that north is ringing true to our listeners now.

So why don't you further explain it to us?

I'd be glad to.

Yeah.

You know, I just think this is kind of a fun one because, you know, there, there's been a couple of times when, you know, it's a, this is all about a time when the Canadian, Canadian football could, could spend the same money as the NFL, right?

And that happened in bits and spurts.

You know, the AAFC in the late 40s, you know, they spent comparable money.

So did the USFL.

So that, so did the WFL.

But they, and, and like what happened here, you know, they, they, they basically went out after a couple of key stars, right?

And you know, to kind of bring publicity and, you know, and showcase key players, right?

So, so Larry Zonka all of a sudden and Mercury Morris I think are, you know, in the WFL and you know, whatever, you know, they're, you know, different things happen in each league.

But in this particular Case, you know, the.

As it's turned out, 10 different Heisman Trophy winners have played professional football in Canada.

And generally they are guys who were on the downside of their careers, right?

I mean, they, they played in the NFL, they had a couple of years, and for one reason or another, you know, could, could have been just their abilities.

They didn't fit the mold of the NFL or they had drug problems, you know, whatever it may have been, but they didn't.

They just didn't last in the NFL.

And so Canada was their opportunity to kind of rehabilitate themselves, either as football players or as people.

And, you know, because it just wasn't as.

As much money, but back a little bit earlier, it was the same money.

And so, so this story really is about Billy Vessels because he's, he's, he's a different story.

You know, most Heisman Trophy winners are either a running back or quarterback.

And you know, among those who played in Canada, four were running backs and three or, you know, six were quarterbacks.

So he gets drafted by the Colts who had just moved from Baltimore.

So, you know, they were kind of a, you know, not a well organized franchise.

And you know, maybe, you know, then they actually dissolved, I think after another year or two.

But anyways, it sounds like they kind of lowballed him and, you know, he was coming out of Oklahoma again, playing the, playing the split tee, and he had an opportunity to go up to Edmonton that was being coached by Daryl Royal, who went on to fame in US College football, who was an Oklahoma alum who had run the split tee when he was there as a player and was running it up in Edmonton, you know, and plus, like his quarterback, the previous, his quarterback at Oklahoma the previous year had played for Edmonton the year before and liked it, you know, and so they offered him at least comparable money, plus the opportunity to get into the oil business up there.

Then he's an Oklahoma kid and he's like, oil sounds good.

You know, and so the whole combination just, you know, he signed with them and, you know, it's one of those things you just can't even imagine because the money is just so different.

You know, the, you know, the, the highest paid CFL players, you know, basically make less than the lowest paid NFL players, you know, in terms of permanent roster guys.

And so the money's no longer comparable.

But, but, but then it was and so, you know, he goes up there, has a great season.

He's the, the most outstanding player for what was then the Western Interprovincial Rugby Union.

So this is pre CFL for me.

You know, he's a total stud up there.

They get eliminated from playoffs and then you know, around that time he learns that he's getting drafted by the US a second time, this time by the US army, not by the NFL.

So that's the one you can't turn down.

Yeah, no, no, you don't, you don't have a choice on that one.

And so, you know, he ends up, he ends up, you know, spending two years in the army and then, and actually in the first year at when he was drafted, somehow it worked out that he was able to play like one or two games with the Kitchner team, which was in the Ontario Rugby Football Union.

So they were like kind of a second class league, but they still played in the great Cup.

He ends up in a backfield with like Alan Amichi.

And who's the other stud?

I'm.

I'm blanking on the name of the halfback, but they end up shifting him to, to flanker because that's just when really, you know, flankers are really becoming key part of NFL play.

And he does well there.

But anyways, and after the end of the season he just kind of says, ah, you know, I'm done with it, I'm good.

And he got, he ends up not even going into the oil oil business anymore.

He ends up in.

Goes to.

Moves to Florida and moves into real estate and does well for himself and everything.

But it's just one of those funny stories you just can't imagine anymore because here's this guy, you know, Iceman Trophy winner and he signs with Canada number one and then, you know, basically leaves the game after, you know, two years of play.

You know, granted he was in the US army for two, two years in between.

But just, you know, the money, money differences today are so great that it just wouldn't happen anymore.

But it happened then, you know.

Yeah.

Right.

So, so, so I'm intrigued.

So who.

I'm trying to run through my head who the other nine Heisman winners were that were in the cfl.

I'm thinking like a rocket.

Ishmael.

This one, right?

Nope.

Oh, didn't he.

He's not on my list.

He's not my.

Yeah.

I mean, didn't he win a Heisman?

Maybe.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe.

Well, he won the Heisman, but yeah, I don't think he's on the.

I don't.

Maybe.

Maybe that was his brother that played in the cfl.

Maybe.

Maybe it was and it.

Doug Flutie.

That's an easy one.

I'm drawing a blank.

I don't know who.

Who the other seven would be or I guess would be eight.

Eight more because that wasn't Rocket Israel.

So Billy Vessels.

Terry Baker out of Oregon.

Quarterback.

Okay.

1962 Heisman.

Johnny Rogers, Nebraska.

1972.

Andre Ware, 89.

Oh, okay.

I didn't play in the CFL.

He's Houston.

Right, Right.

Rashan Salam.

So he didn't play in a regular season game.

I guess he was in the roster or whatever.

But Ricky Williams.

That's where the drug problem kind of thing goes.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

All right.

I forgot about.

Ricky was in there.

Dolphins.

Right.

I'm not sure he came.

I think he came out of the CFL and went to the Dolphins after that.

So he was 98.

Heisman and he didn't.

Okay.

But he was New Orleans Saints.

That's where they traded all the crazy draft picks to get that selection.

Dicka and then Eric Crouch.

I saw him.

I saw him.

I was in.

In the stadium to see him versus Oklahoma.

He had a nice long touchdown run on the left side of the field.

Troy Smith.

Okay.

And then Johnny Menzel.

Oh, yeah.

Too.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, so.

But they're.

They're all kind of like.

They're all kind of.

They had a cup of coffee up there.

Right.

I mean, they kind of did their best and they.

I mean, I really think all of them, they're like trying to rest other than Vessels, you know, they're kind of trying to resurrect their career up there or one last shot kind of thing.

And.

But you know, never really worked out.

I mean, other.

You know, food is a real, real difference, you know, among a lot of these guys, you know.

Yeah, he did real well up there and got himself back in the NFL.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, so.

And he.

He did.

Did real well wherever he was, you know.

But.

But he still wasn't.

It wasn't like he went from the CFL and became MVP in the NFL, you know.

Right, right.

But.

Yeah, and he was.

But he, you know, he's one of those guys and a Lot of these guys, quarterbacks especially, they're kind of smaller guys, you know, they didn't fit the.

The mold of the big, tall, you know, Ben rocked prosper, you know, kind of stud, you know, T formation, drop pack quarterback.

Now, nowadays, probably there's a lot more overlap, I think, in terms of skill set of CFL quarterbacks and NFL quarterbacks.

But back, you know, a decade or two, you know, in the past, maybe not so much they wanted the big six foot six guy and you know, if you were fluty size, sorry, but.

You have a chance.

Like even D2 guys have a chance.

Like Trevor Harris, who's been in there forever.

I'm sure he's still playing.

He's had a phenomenal year this year.

He's actually from my college.

He's from Edinburgh University.

Yeah, I remember.

You know, there's.

Well, actually, one of the cool things about like the CFL this year is you got guys like Trey Ford, that was Saskatchewan, Nathan Rourke with bc, you know, so Canadian kids, you know, and Rourke played at Ohio, but, you know, Ford was, you know, played up in youth sports.

So.

And there's one other guy that I'm missing.

But anyways, there's, you know, there's multiple NFL or CFL starting quarterbacks who are Canadian kids this year, which is really cool.

Right, right.

But by and large, you know, they're guys who.

There's a fair number of them that played at, you know, FCS or lower, you know, kind of Mac, you know, whatever, you know, so P. Whatever we're calling them now, P4 schools or G4 schools, whatever we're calling them.

But so they're.

There's a lot of those guys who are the quarterbacks.

And, you know, it's kind of, you know, they just, they fit that game better.

You know, they're just more mobile quarterbacks.

They can move around and, you know, and they're just, you know, they're willing to stick around and make it happen, you know, and then you got guys like Mazzoli and other guys, you know, been there, you know, for a little bit longer.

But it's.

Well, anyways, I think it's, you know, I think it's fun.

That's kind of a different topic.

But.

Yeah, yeah, good, good stuff.

Yeah, great stuff.

And I'm, I'm glad that you, you bring up some of these things, you know, some.

It's a.

It's a crossover American football and the Canadian football.

And you, you see some of our biggest college stars, you know, you just mentioned 10 of them that won the highest award from college football in America.

And, you know, they're, some of them did great in Canadian football, some, you know, average or, you know, maybe a little bit less.

But you, you bring out some attention to them and just like you do a lot of stories that you do in your tidbits and maybe you could share with the audience, you know, how they can take in some of your tidbits.

Yeah, you know, basically it's, you know, the site's called Football Archaeology.

Just Google that and you can subscribe and either get the get an email every time that I publish a new story or just follow me on, on the Substack app or just, you know, follow me on Blue sky or bookmark it and come out and visit anytime you want.

So that's best way to, best way to check out the tidbits and other stories.

All right, Tim, we really appreciate you coming on and sharing this like you do every Tuesday, and love to talk to you again next week.

Very good.

Thanks, Darren.

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