Both of these were not close to recent.Off the top of my head one of the exceptions as far as a lower profile program was Barry Sanders but his numbers were so far superior to the field that the voters had no choice but to award him the Heisman. And while OSU is nowhere near to being a "name" program they had a very good season that year. Andre Ware would be another.
With Sanders his numbers were superior but the biggest thing was that he was the most spectacular RB that people had seen. Even though OSU wasn't a national power Sanders ended up on sports cast and highlights shows almost every week. Whenever they needed something to fill a little time they could usually find his latest run so fairly soon everyone knew about him.