Herschel Walker, Gino Torretta and Sam Bradford brought college football’s highest honor to Minnesota, but little lasting success. Can Kyler Murray change the pattern?
It’s too soon to tell whether Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray will face the Chicago Bears this Sunday after suffering a concussion early in the season-opening victory over the Green Bay Packers. He remained in concussion protocol on Wednesday.
But when the squad’s new starter returns, he will try to recapture the success that earned him the 2018 Heisman Trophy as the nation’s outstanding college football player at the University of Oklahoma.
Murray also hopes to do better here than the three former Heisman winners who preceded him in Vikings purple. Their collegiate achievements yielded only modest returns in Minnesota.
With the National Football League season underway, it’s an opportune time to glance back at those predecessors.
Gino’s Gone
One was Gino Torretta, who won the Heisman in 1992 at the University of Miami. He had helped the Hurricanes win a national championship as their starting quarterback the previous season, but his Heisman year ended with a loss to Alabama in the national title game.
His college credentials did not command a lofty draft position. The Vikings selected him in the seventh round in 1993, with the 192nd overall pick. He spent one season on their roster, appearing in one game without attempting a pass.
Stints with several other teams followed, but his NFL passing ledger remained meager: five completions in 16 attempts, with one touchdown and one interception. Hardly a Heisman-worthy pro performance.
Hype and Hope
The Vikings’ other two Heisman predecessors arrived through major trades.
Herschel Walker, who came before Torretta, won the award as a Georgia junior in 1982. He had helped lead the Bulldogs to an undefeated national championship season as a freshman in 1980, then to another unbeaten regular season in his Heisman year.
Seven years after winning the trophy, Walker joined the Vikings in a blockbuster midseason trade with the Dallas Cowboys, then at the nadir of their existence. Minnesota hoped he would be the vital peg that gave a strong team a shot at winning the Super Bowl, which had eluded it on four occasions in the 1970s.
He got off to a spectacular start. In his debut against Green Bay, Walker lost a shoe during a 47-yard run.
But he never lived up to the hype or hope. In his 2½ seasons here, the Vikings made one playoff appearance and never got a sniff of the Super Bowl.
Walker played another six seasons with Philadelphia, the New York Giants and, finally, Dallas. Meanwhile, the haul of players and draft choices acquired in the trade helped the Cowboys build a dynasty that won three Super Bowls in four seasons.
His later career took him into politics. A supporter of Donald Trump, Walker lost his Georgia U.S. Senate race in 2022. Trump subsequently nominated him as ambassador to the Bahamas, and the Senate confirmed him in October 2025.
Briefly Bradford
The other Vikings Heisman winner was Sam Bradford, the starting quarterback when the team inaugurated regular-season play at U.S. Bank Stadium in 2016 against Green Bay.
An Oklahoma quarterback like Murray, Bradford won the Heisman in 2008. His NFL career was marked by struggling teams and troublesome knees before the Vikings abruptly acquired him from the Philadelphia Eagles on the eve of the 2016 season.
The trade followed a devastating knee injury to starting quarterback Teddy Bridgewater during a noncontact preseason practice.
Bradford performed capably on short notice, leading Minnesota to a 17–14 victory over the Packers in the stadium opener. He started four of the games in the Vikings’ 5–0 opening stretch before the team sputtered to an 8–8 finish and missed the playoffs.
He did establish an NFL single-season completion record of 71.6 percent. Drew Brees of New Orleans surpassed it with 72 percent the following season, then raised the mark to 74.4 percent in 2018.
But Bradford’s time here was brief. Knee trouble limited him to two games in 2017, leaving backup Case Keenum to guide the Vikings through most of a remarkable season.
It was Keenum who quarterbacked the unforgettable “Minneapolis Miracle” playoff victory over Brees and the Saints. Minnesota then lost the NFC Championship Game to Bradford’s former Eagles team, which went on to beat Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Bradford departed after two seasons. He never won a playoff game as an NFL starting quarterback.
Close Calls
A few other Vikings came close to winning the Heisman.
Stanford running back Toby Gerhart was the runner-up in 2009, losing to Alabama’s Mark Ingram by 28 points in the closest Heisman balloting ever.
Gerhart’s superb final college season included 28 rushing touchdowns and the Doak Walker Award as the nation’s top running back. He spent four seasons with the Vikings, largely backing up Adrian Peterson and filling in when Peterson was injured, before concluding his career with two seasons in Jacksonville.
Quarterback Archie Manning, patriarch of the famous football family, finished fourth in the Heisman voting in 1969 and third in 1970 while at Mississippi. He concluded his 14-season NFL career with the Vikings in 1983 and 1984, including the latter year’s desultory 3–13 campaign.
The Heisman saga has not been particularly promising here. But hope springs eternal that Murray, the fourth winner to wear Vikings purple, can turn his one-year deal into a longer-lasting and more successful relationship.
First, he must recover from the concussion that interrupted his debut. Carson Wentz, who took over and helped lead Minnesota to victory over the Packers, gives the team an experienced alternative while Murray works toward returning.
