LOGAN — The thought first came to Doug Hoffman, the associate athletics director for media relations at Utah State University, following the Aggies’ 52-13 rout of North Texas in the New Mexico Bowl last December.
Utah State quarterback Jordan Love was excellent in that game, throwing for 359 yards and four touchdowns.
It was, however, just another in a long line of stellar performances by Love in what had been a breakout sophomore season.
It was a year in which he threw for 3,567 yards and 32 touchdowns, breaking five school records as a result.
So after yet another stellar outing by Love, Hoffman had the thought to organize a Heisman trophy campaign for the Utah State quarterback.
“I started thinking about it right when the season got over last year, to be honest with you,” Hoffman said. “We don’t have a face (like Jordan’s) every year and for us, it is great exposure.”
That thought ultimately turned into a full-fledged Heisman campaign, which began in earnest on a national scale earlier this week when national media members and, more importantly, Heisman voters received Love-for-Heisman themed goodies from Utah State.
More than 800 manila envelopes went out from Logan to locales across the country — there are more to be sent out yet — with a Love-themed notepad inside, along with white candy hearts with the words ‘Vote 10VE’ emblazoned upon them (Love’s number at Utah State is 10, making for an easy play on words).
Even the envelopes themselves were Heisman-themed, with a stamp on the outside with the words ‘ATTENTION. Handle with 10VE.’
The effort did not go unnoticed, particularly on social media as national media, NFL scouts and Heisman voters quickly took to Twitter to praise Utah State for the effort.
Of course, while the campaign has drawn national attention of late, the effort goes back to soon after Hoffman’s initial musings.
After Utah State hired Gary Andersen as head coach, one of Hoffman’s first tasks was to seek his permission to run a Heisman campaign for Love, not to mention asking Love himself.
As it turned out, those were relatively easy steps.
“They were both totally on board with it,” Hoffman said.
From there, Hoffman and his office connected with the university’s marketing department.
“The process started with us getting together as a group between my office and our marketing department and just brainstorming,” he said.
One of the easiest things to come up with was the notebook, which drew inspiration from Utah State’s earlier Heisman campaigns for Chuckie Keeton.
“We kind of had that template in place, with what we did when we did that with Chuckie Keeton,” Hoffman said. “The notebook was something we did for Chuckie his second go-round (2014) and I got a lot of really positive feedback on that when I did it the first time. Everybody uses it.”
The candy hearts took some time, though.
“The candy hearts one just came out of a brainstorming session,” said Hoffman. “We were trying to play off his name and there are a lot of things you can do because of his name. The candy hearts one came up and everyone gravitated towards it. It took some conversation. We had two different messages on the hearts at first. And then there was packaging. It took some time to figure out, but the feedback has been really really good.”
The hearts have been such a rousing success that they are currently on back order, in fact.
“There are a lot of Power Five schools that don’t even do stuff like this anymore, cause they don’t have to, but for us it is great exposure,” Hoffman said. “It is not something we can do every year. We don’t have a face like (Jordan Love or Chuckie Keeton) every year.”
How does Love feel about the campaign?
“It is crazy, just all the hype,” he said. “I enjoy it. At the end of the day, it is all fun stuff.”
His teammates have loved it, too.
When the notebook and candy were first unveiled at Mountain West media days in late July, wide receiver Siaosi Mariner, newly arrived from the University of Utah, took to Twitter with the exclamation, ‘The man got his own candy. What a time #10LOVEforHeisman.’
There is more to come too, with the understandable caveat that the extent of Heisman campaigning done by the university will be in correlation with the type of season Love and the Aggies have.
“A lot of it is going to be dictated on how the season goes, not only for him individually, but also team-wise,” Hoffman said.
Much of the additional campaigning will take place via social media, but don’t rule out another salvo of propaganda through the mail.
“Hopefully, from this point on it will be mostly stuff on social media,” Hoffman said. “There may be another mailer, mid-season or later, if things are going well. What that is, I couldn’t even tell you.”
Ultimately the best campaigning will come on the field, courtesy of Love and the Aggies themselves, and their first chance to create some Heisman buzz will come Friday night, when they battle the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in the season opener.
A win over a Power Five opponent, a rarity in Utah State history, would certainly be a noisemaker for Love, but the team expects the task to be difficult.
After all, the programs faced off in 2017 and the Demon Deacons handled the Aggies on that occasion 46-10.
Now, two years later, Wake Forest is coming off a 7-6 campaign that ended with the program’s third consecutive bowl appearance, a first for the Demon Deacons since the 1950s.
“Wake Forest is a very good football team,” Andersen said. “They have a lot of momentum coming off last season, have an explosive offense and very well-coached defense. They’ve got good coaches and good players. That is very clear. We will have our hands full on both sides of the ball. We are excited about the opportunity. It’ll be a big challenge and we are excited about it.”