The Heisman Trophy is awarded to the best player in college football for his body of work throughout the season. The final ballots are received by December 9, after conference championship games, and the award ceremony is held on December 14. This is a normal timeline for the greatest award in college football.
However, this timeline doesn’t make sense in this new playoff era.
With three times more teams reaching the playoff this year, it certainly doesn’t feel like this season is nearing its typical late-November conclusion, so why should the Heisman race end at the end of the regular season?
Shouldn’t we wait and see how these Heisman candidates play on the biggest stages in college football history in this new expanded playoff format, especially when you consider the teams some of these players have been up against to date?
Weak Schedules for Heisman Hopefuls
The four players with the best odds of winning the Heisman are currently: Dillon Gabriel, Travis Hunter, Ashton Jeanty and Cam Ward. Of these four, only Gabriel is in what is considered to be a Power Two Conference, and only Gabriel can claim a win over a Top 5 program.
Jeanty is in the Mountain West and has played against inferior competition, but he has been carrying Boise State to victory with his incredible running prowess. He did get a shot at Oregon in Week 2 this season, where they fell short of the win. He had a strong outing against the Ducks, but the Ducks have only improved as a team since then. Jeanty is certainly the best running back in all of college football this season, though what he probably needs to push him into strong Heisman consideration down he stretch is to play against stronger competition.
Hunter plays in the Big 12, and Colorado has surprised many this year in conference play — but it is clear that the Big 12 is a far cry from the B1G or SEC. When Colorado faced Nebraska, a middling B1G team, they lost by 18 points and it didn’t look that close. Hunter himself is an incredible athlete and can compete with any team in the country, but at this time he lacks those opportunities to show off his skills against quality competition.
Ashton Jeanty runs against Oregon’s defense in a loss to the Ducks.
(Photo By: Craig Strobeck)
And the same is mostly true for Ward and Miami. Miami has only played one ranked team in Louisville, as they entered the rankings in both the AP poll and CFP Committee rankings with their win over Clemson (though not a highly-ranked team). Ward has put up insane numbers this year, though only a few of the teams he has beaten even have winning records.
If stats are all that are needed to win the Heisman, then having weak schedules could be key to winning. However, that hasn’t been part of the criteria in the past. Heisman winners tend to need “signature wins” and “Heisman moments” to prove they are the best players in college football. Outside of Gabriel, none of these players have been tested.
More Heisman Moments
If Heisman moments matter to the voters, we might not actually see these players tested until the playoff. The playoff is going to be a fantastic time to see how these players rise to the occasion when they have to play teams and players of equal caliber. Playoff games were also advertised as the greatest games of the college football season.
It feels like Miami and Boise State are both likely to make the playoff at this point. Their resumes are lackluster, but that isn’t entirely their fault as they can only play the teams on their schedule. The truth is, that is what winners are supposed to do — they beat the teams that they are supposed to beat.
One of the strange consequences of super conferences this year is that it feels like ranked teams are meeting each other less frequently. Those are the type of games where Heismans are made, and if the regular season isn’t going to regularly test our Heisman hopefuls, then we need to see how they play in the playoff and potentially even against each other to determine the winner of this prestigious trophy.
David Marsh
Portland, Oregon
Top Photo By: Naji Saker
Natalie Liebhaber, the FishDuck.com Volunteer Editor for this article, works in technology in SLC, Utah.
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David Marsh is a high school social studies teacher in Portland, Oregon. As a teacher he is known for telling puns to his students who sometimes laugh out of sympathy, and being both eccentric about history and the Ducks.
David graduated from the University of Oregon in 2012 with Majors in: Medieval Studies, Religious Studies, and Geography. David began following Ducks Football after being in a car accident in 2012; finding football something new and exciting to learn about during this difficult time in his life. Now, he cannot see life without Oregon football.