Question: Which Oklahoma player in the 1951 Sugar Bowl went on to win the Heisman Trophy?

The 1951 Sugar Bowl was the 17th Sugar Bowl matchup, pitting the Big Seven champion Oklahoma Sooners (ranked #1 in the Associated Press poll) against the Southeastern Conference champion Kentucky Wildcats (ranked #7).  Oklahoma's regular season record was 10-0; Kentucky's was 10-1.  Oklahoma averaged 34.5 points per game; only one team had scored more than twice in a game against Kentucky that season.  Oklahoma entered the January 1, 1951, game with a 31-game winning streak; the Sooners' last loss had come on September 25, 1948.  Kentucky was coached by Bear Bryant; Oklahoma was coached by Bud Wilkinson.  82,000 fans attended the game.  Notable players for the two teams included Oklahoma's Billy Vessels and Kentucky's Charlie McClendon, Babe Parilli and Wilbur "Shorty" Jamerson. <SEP> The Heisman curse is a term coined to reference a two-part assertion of a negative future for the winning player of the Heisman Trophy.  The "curse" supposes that any college football player who wins the Heisman plays on a team that will likely lose its subsequent bowl game.  The trend of post-award failure has garnered the attention of the mainstream media.  Talk of a curse in relation to bowl results was particularly prevalent from 2003 to 2008, when six Heisman Trophy winners compiled a cumulative 1–5 bowl game record, and five of those six led number one ranked teams into the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship Game as favorites (Heisman Trophy winners, including Reggie Bush, who gave back his Heisman Trophy, are 4–8 overall in the BCS National Championship Game and College Football Playoff National Championship, although prior to 2009 they were 1–6).  Additionally, the Heisman curse asserts that in most cases a Heisman winner will have either a poor career in the National Football League (NFL), or in fact not even see such a football career at all.  Although many Heisman winners have not enjoyed success at the professional level, including players like Matt Leinart, Andre Ware, Jason White, Rashaan Salaam, Eric Crouch, Ty Detmer, Troy Smith and Gino Torretta, proponents of the "curse" rarely cite highly successful players such as Barry Sanders, Charles Woodson, Eddie George, Tim Brown, Bo Jackson, Marcus Allen, Earl Campbell, and Tony Dorsett among the notables. <SEP> Billy Dale Vessels (March 22, 1931 – November 17, 2001) was a gridiron football player.  Vessels went on to play professional football with the National Football League's Baltimore Colts and the Western Interprovincial Football Union's Edmonton Eskimos.  He played college football at the University of Oklahoma and won the Heisman Trophy in 1952. <SEP> The 1997 Tennessee Volunteers football team represented the University of Tennessee during the 1997 NCAA Division I-A football season.  Quarterback Peyton Manning had already completed his degree in three years, and had been projected to be the top overall pick in the 1997 NFL Draft, but returned to Tennessee for his senior year.  The Volunteers opened the season with victories against Texas Tech and UCLA, but for the third time in his career, Manning fell to Florida, 33–20.  The Vols won the rest of their regular season games, finishing 10–1, and advanced to the SEC Championship Game against Auburn.  Down 20–7, Manning led the Vols to a 30–29 victory.  Throwing for four touchdowns, he was named the game's MVP, but injured himself in the process.  The #3 Vols were matched up with #2 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl.  Had Tennessee won and top-ranked Michigan lost to Washington State in the Rose Bowl, the Vols would have been expected to win the national championship.  However, the Vols' defense could not stop Nebraska's rushing attack, giving up more than 400 yards on the ground in a 42–17 loss.  As a senior, Manning won numerous awards.  He was a consensus first-team All-American and won the Maxwell Award, the Davey O'Brien Award, the Johnny Unitas Award, and the Best College Football Player ESPY Award, among others.  However, he did not win the Heisman Trophy, finishing runner-up to Charles Woodson, a CB from Michigan, and the only defensive player ever to win the Heisman Trophy.