A pair of quarterbacks who were invited to New York for last year’s Heisman ceremony, including the eventual winner, headline the list.
By Mitchell Forde For FrontPageBets The college football season kicks off Saturday with Week 0. While none of the teams in action will feature a player on the Heisman Trophy odds board, the start of the season means it’s time to start looking at the contenders to lift the most coveted individual award in the game.
Anderson finished fifth in Heisman voting. He’s widely projected as the No. 1 prospect for next spring’s NFL Draft, but can he do enough to become the first defensive player to win the Heisman since Charles Woodson in 1997? Stroud will also have the benefit of playing on a team that should win most, if not all, of its games and will be in the spotlight plenty. That starts right away, as OSU opens the season by playing host to Notre Dame in prime time on Sept. 3. A big game from Stroud could see his odds drop even lower.It might seem strange for the defending Heisman winner not to start the following season as the favorite, especially when he plays for the No. 1 team in the preseason polls.
To no one’s surprise, Williams followed head coach Lincoln Riley to USC. As a sophomore, he will start for a Trojan offense that Riley completely revamped via the transfer portal. Between fellow Oklahoma transfer Mario Williams and Pitt transfer Jordan Addison, last season’s Biletnikoff Award winner as the top receiver in the country, Williams should have plenty of talent to target through the air.
The biggest obstacle to him actually lifting the trophy will likely be the aversion of voters to present the award to a defensive player. If it was ever going to happen, last season, with no singularly dominant quarterback, seemed like the year. Yet Anderson couldn’t even get an invite to New York and Michigan’s Aidan Hutchinson fell short of Young.
If Robinson can build on his 2021 campaign and stay healthy for the entire season, he might have a chance to break the dry spell. But the biggest impediment could be Texas’ success as a team. The Longhorns went just 5-7 last season. And if Texas does recapture its mojo and win double-digit games, might the attention gravitate toward former five-star quarterback Quinn Ewers?