Heisman Buzz Entering Week 3

We saw a red leaf today, which means only one thing, crisp fall football is right around the corner!

Sure we’re only in Week 3 and more games will be played in the 80s this weekend than anything approaching true cool weather, but college football has us in the fall feels.

Speaking of which, let’s take the pulse of the college football scene and see where the scribes and stats are while assessing the early stages of the Heisman race.

We’ll start in Oxford, Miss., where third-year senior quarterback — wow, that’s a rarity these days — Jaxson Dart has Ole Miss 2-0 and ranked No. 5 heading into a non-conference bout with Wake Forest.

Dart joined the Official Heisman Trophy Podcast this week to talk about his early success, his goals for this year and all things Hotty Toddy.  Click here to listen to his full interview. 

Dart has completed 87.0% of his 54 pass attempts for 795 yards and six scores but has his biggest test of the early season Saturday against Wake Forest.

Texas Quinn Ewers and Alabama’s Jalen Milroe remain among the September favorites.

Ewers kickstarted his campaign by directing the Longhorns to a 31-12 thrashing of Michigan on Saturday with 246 yards and three scores and now has six TDs on the season. Texas has a couple modest home games in Texas-San Antonio and Louisiana Monroe coming up, so he’ll have a chance to polish his game and stats before the SEC schedule kicks off Sept. 28.

Longhorn Coach Steve Sarkisian, who has been through the Heisman hype machine at USC and Alabama, said he likes how dialed in Ewers is to his game in this Austin American-Statesman story.

“That’s why I think he’ll handle it really well,” Sarkisian told media this week. “(Ewers) just doesn’t consume himself with what other people think. He’s more focused on what he needs to do to perform. He’s more focused on how he can support his teammates and be the best quarterback leader and teammate that he can be.”

Meanwhile Fox Sports announcer Joel Klatt has Ewers atop his Week 2 list.

No. 2 on Klatt’s list was first-year Miami QB Cam Ward, who guided Miami to a big with over Florida A&M with 304 yards and three scores. He also has six TD passes so far. Interestingly, there is only one current ranked team on the Hurricanes’ schedule right now, which could make for a unique road for Ward.

Milroe did not make Klatt’s top 5, but that could change after this week. Milroe, sixth last year in the balloting, has completed a modest 23-of-35 passes for 394 yards and 5 scores in partial action in two blowout wins, though he has also rushed for four TDs.

A clash against Big Ten foe Wisconsin this week could give Milroe a pop in the Heisman vibes should he lead the Tide to a 3-0 start. 

Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, fourth on Klatt’s list, is one of a bevy of SEC QBs tallying Heisman speculation in the early season and his numbers aren’t too shabby. He’s completed over 70% of his 58 pass attempts for 520 yards and seven touchdowns. 

About half of that production came in the Bulldogs’ 34-3 season-opening win over Clemson and the balance against over-matched Tennessee Tech.

Beck finally gets his chance against an SEC opponent in Kentucky where he could solidify his early Heisman bonafides ahead of a titanic clash against Alabama a week later.

Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty did nothing to hurt his early season Heisman momentum despite the Broncos’ late 37-34 loss at Oregon. The running back savant rushed for 192 yards on 25 carries and scored 3 times.

Robert Griffin III placed Jeanty atop his latest Heisman Top 5 (Syracuse QB Kyle McCord was second). 

There aren’t a lot of big-time defenses on Boise’s schedule, so his numbers should keep on rising. McCord, by the way, has passed for 735 yards and 8 TDs in two weeks.

Let’s hit a couple Big Ten QBs in Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel and USC’s Miller Moss.

The Ducks have squeaked their way – or quack as it were – to a 2-0 start with nail-biting wins over Pacific Northwest rivals Idaho and Boise State.

It’s not quite the expected start for Oregon, which boasts a preseason leading Heisman candidate in Gabriel. Although the games have been tight, Gabriel has been a rock, completing 84.3 of his 70 passes to go with four TD passes though he has been sacked 7 times.

The Ducks have a fairly favorable schedule, as Big Ten schedules go, and if Gabriel goes off in the early rivalry game this Saturday against Oregon State, it could provide a big Heisman chatter boost.

As for Moss, he followed his poised play in leading the Trojans to a season-opening win over LSU by guiding Troy to a 48-0 win over Utah State. He passes for 229 yards and a score in about three quarters of action while USC also ran the ball 37 times.

Moss, fourth on Klatt’s list, is off this week before USC plays its first Big Ten conference game at Michigan on Sept. 21.

Finally, let’s finish with a shoutout to 2023 seventh-place Heisman finalist Ollie Gordon III, from Oklahoma State. He opened the 2024 season with 123 yards and three scores against South Dakota State but was held in check by Arkansas in Week 2, rushing for only 49 yards.

The caveat here is that Gordon came through with the game-winning score in the Pokes’ double OT win over the Razorbacks, a 12-yard burst followed by a two-point PAT reception.

If Gordon can get cooking again against Tulsa, it might help wipe away the modest numerical effort against Arkansas and put him right back in the Heisman convo.