Arkansas’ Darren McFadden beat out West Virginia’s Steve Slaton and eight other semifinalists for this year’s Doak Walker Award, named for the great Southern Methodist player of the 1940s. The award was established in 1989 to “recognize the nation’s premier running back for his accomplishments on the field, achievements in the classroom and citizenship in the community.”

I don’t know anything about their grades or citizenship standing, but let’s look at how McFadden and Slaton stack up in on-the-field performance:

Slaton is equal or superior to McFadden in every statistic, and in yards per carry he has a big edge — a whopping 1.2 yard advantage. (Note that West Virginia played 12 games this year to Arkansas’ 13.) Why then was McFadden a Heisman finalist while Slaton wasn’t mentioned? McFadden gained a great deal of publicity, all of it merited, for having such a great season in the nation’s toughest conference, the SEC. But in fact, McFadden didn’t play a tougher schedule than Slaton. The Razorbacks’ overall opponents had a record of 79-62 to WV’s 74–57. (USA Today’s Jeff Sagarin ranks the two teams’ schedule toughness in a near dead heat.)

Here’s another big edge for Slaton. McFadden, as noted, averaged 5.9 yards a run — but so did the rest of the Arkansas runners (240 carries for 1,409 yards). Slaton ran for 7.1 yards a try, but the rest of his teammates averaged just 6.3 (300 carries for 895 yards).

McFadden and Slaton are both sophomores and will try to put on a show to impress next year’s Heisman voters when Arkansas plays Wisconsin in the Capital One Bowl and West Virginia meets Georgia Tech in the Toyota Gator Bowl on January 1.