Mid-Season Reports Dominating the Latest Heisman Buzz
It’s mid-October and the college football world is facing the same good news, bad news scenario it always does this time of year.
On the glass-half-empty front, sadly, the season is half over. Where did the time go? On the glass-half-full front, with every passing week we are seeing more and more top performances, games that mean that much more and the intensity of each weekend keeps ramping up.
So let’s dig in and check out what the college football media universe is dishing about the Heisman race.
ESPN.com checked in this week with a mid-season Heisman Trophy straw poll of 14 writers and the results fairly mirror the buzz we’ve been seeing for the past few weeks.
Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty was firmly in first place with 11 of 14 votes. Colorado WR/CB Travis Hunter was second with the other 3 votes while Miami QB Cam Ward was third.
Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel was fourth and this week’s Heisman Trophy Podcast guest Kurtis Rourke, Indiana’s first-year senior transfer QB, was fifth.
— You can find the interview with Rourke HERE. —
Jeanty ran for 217 yards and a touchdown last week at Hawaii to give him 1,248 yards on 126 carries, good for a ridiculous 9.9 yards per carry average to go with 17 rushing scores. Had he not been removed in the second half of two blowouts, he’d be hovering around 1,500 yards.
1988 Heisman winner Barry Sanders holds the NCAA season rushing record with 2,628 yards, which was before bowl stats were allowed to count. With the bowl game, Sanders’ total balloons to 2,850 yards.
Jeanty will have a chance to break it with six regular-season games to go, a potential Mountain West Championship game and perhaps a bid into the College Football Playoff 12-team bracket.
Says ESPN: “Jeanty is the most explosive playmaker in the sport, with eight touchdown runs of 50 or more yards. Defenses spend all week scheming to stuff the box and slow him, but Jeanty leads all FBS backs in broken tackles. He has done all this despite sitting out the second half of two blowout wins for the No. 15 Broncos as they chase another Mountain West title and a College Football Playoff bid.”
As for second-place Hunter, the star suffered a shoulder injury which cost him half of CU’s game last week, but thankfully it does not appear to be a long-term setback and he is scheduled to return this week.
ESPN broke down his season so far: “Nobody else in college football can do what Hunter does. Colorado’s two-way star and future first-round pick got off to a dominant start in the Buffaloes’ first season back in the Big 12, leading the conference in catches with 49 for 587 yards and six touchdowns. He opened the season with four consecutive 100-yard performances at receiver, but his play at cornerback has been just as impressive. Hunter has yet to allow a touchdown pass and has recorded three pass breakups and two interceptions.”
Ward, who took a week off from orchestrating another fourth-quarter comeback during a bye, has 2,219 passing yards with 23 total touchdowns, and has the Hurricanes operating the top scoring offense in the country.
Gabriel, like Ward, has led his squad to an unbeaten first half of the season, including a monster win over visiting Ohio State last week. In the Ducks’ comeback win over the Buckeyes, Gabriel completed 23-of-34 passes for 341 yards and two scores while rushing for another touchdown. He has 1,911 yards of total offense and has passed for 13 TDs.
Then there’s the surprising Rourke, who leads the nation in passing efficiency (192.11). He has thrown for 1,752 yards with 14 TDs and just two interceptions, leading the Hoosiers to a No. 16 ranking heading into a huge tilt with Nebraska this weekend.
Athlon Sports had the same order among the top 4 in its latest Heisman rankings, with Alabama QB Jalen Milroe in the fifth spot.
The sixth through eighth spots were populated by a group of QBs including Mississippi’s Jaxson Dart, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, all of whom are having strong seasons.
Bleacher Report’s latest Heisman rankings featured Jeanty, Ward and Gabriel in its top tier of favorites. Its crowded second tier includes LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier, who has kept the Tigers unbeaten since their opening-season loss to USC, Georgia QB Carson Beck, Hunter, Klubnik and Milroe.
2012 Heisman winner Johnny Manziel went on record this week and said it was Jeanty’s “race to lose”. See his comments here.
2013 winner Robert Griffin III posted his latest top 5, which features, in order, Jeanty, Ward, Gabriel, Hunter and Syracuse QB Kyle McCord.
NBC’s Nicole Auerbach gave a nod to Jeanty in her “midseason” Heisman award, which she said was a close call ahead of CU’s Hunter.
Said Auerbach: “I went back and forth between Jeanty and Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter, but I ultimately decided to give the edge to the running back who could break Barry Sanders’ single-season rushing record — that is, if he opts to play both halves of his remaining games and tries to break it.”
In this second-half-of-the-season prediction story, The Athletic sees Hunter eking out a Heisman victory over Jeanty.
There are countless players under the radar. That includes last week’s Heisman Podcast guest Blake Horvath of Navy, who has led the Midshipmen to a 5-0 start. That also includes his natural rival, Army QB Bryson Daily, who has led the Cadets to a 6-0 start. The senior is eighth nationally in rushing with 738 yards while his 14 rushing TDs are third.
Both Horvath and Daily are in action Saturday.
Finally, this Halloween-themed tweet about Jeanty is sure to bring a smile on any reader’s face.
