The Athletic’s Heisman straw poll is grasping at, um, ideas. Throwing stuff at the wall. Darts, even.
Jaxson Dart, welcome. The Ole Miss quarterback makes his debut this week with a second-place vote after throwing for 199 yards and running for 50 on a bum ankle in a program-defining win over Georgia. Bryson Daily, welcome. The Army quarterback also appears, grabbing a pair of third-place votes after running for 153 yards and two touchdowns at North Texas to keep his team unbeaten and in the College Football Playoff race.
That makes five quarterbacks among the nine players who received votes this week, and that sounds about right. Except that none of them rate as serious contenders for the award, not based on our voting, not at this point.
You’ve got to go back to 2015, the year Alabama running back Derrick Henry won it over Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey, to find a pre-Thanksgiving pool of contenders without a quarterback making a serious push. The only other non-quarterback winner since then was Alabama receiver DeVonta Smith in 2020, and Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence was in there until the end (ultimately losing 1,856 to 1,187).
We’re on the cusp of a third non-quarterback winner in the past 10 years. And for this era of football? That’s a pretty good decade for non-quarterbacks.
Miami’s upset loss at Georgia Tech did serious damage in the straw poll to Miami quarterback Cam Ward’s momentum. He was the one signal caller hanging with Colorado receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter — the poll leader by a growing margin — and Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty. That loss dropped Ward from 41 points to 13, from 25 ballots to 10, from third place to fourth, behind Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel (one first-place vote, 14 points).
The Athletic follows the same voting protocol as that of the Heisman: 3 points for a first-place vote, 2 points for a second-place vote, 1 point for a third-place vote. Hunter overtook first place a week ago and had a slim 57-51 lead over Jeanty, but that’s up to a margin of 69-54. Hunter went up from 12 first-place votes to 18, and Jeanty went down from 11 first-place votes to eight — even after Jeanty ran for 209 yards and three touchdowns against Nevada.
| Player | Team | Pos | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Travis Hunter |
WR/CB |
18 |
7 |
1 |
69 |
|
|
Ashton Jeanty |
RB |
8 |
13 |
4 |
54 |
|
|
Dillon Gabriel |
QB |
1 |
1 |
9 |
14 |
|
|
Cam Ward |
QB |
0 |
3 |
7 |
13 |
|
|
Kurtis Rourke |
QB |
0 |
2 |
2 |
6 |
|
|
Bryson Daily |
QB |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
|
|
Jaxson Dart |
QB |
0 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
|
|
Kaleb Johnson |
RB |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
Tyler Warren |
TE |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
Hunter had nine catches for 99 yards and a touchdown in a comeback win at Texas Tech, and he reminded everyone of his dominance on defense with an acrobatic interception, taken off the board by a Colorado offsides penalty. The Buffs are in a serious hunt for the Big 12 title — and a top-four seed and College Football Playoff bye that would likely come with it — and that should be a major boost for Hunter. A boost completely unforeseen just a few weeks ago.
Indiana’s Kurtis Rourke is the fifth quarterback in the poll, and he gained slightly from last week, sitting in fifth place with 6 points. Rourke and the Hoosiers were their dominant selves Saturday in the first half of a win over Michigan, then sputtered for the first time all season and held on for a 20-15 win. A gaudy stat line and rout would have helped him more, of course.
He does have Nov. 23 at Ohio State ahead. Daily has Nov. 23 against Notre Dame. Gabriel has an expected Big Ten title game. Ward has a hopeful ACC title game. And Dart is like most quarterbacks in the SEC in that it’s possible he could play in the league title game.
Opportunities are scarce. The quarterbacks are about done. So The Athletic voters are throwing names around. How about Penn State tight end Tyler Warren? He got a third-place vote, just like Iowa running back Kaleb Johnson, and those two come in tied for eighth.
BYU kicker Will “Big Game Bill” Ferrin got an honorable mention after his clutch performance to keep BYU unbeaten at the expense of rival Utah. Ole Miss linebacker Suntarine Perkins was under consideration for a vote, didn’t get it, but he deserves a mention, too.
Plenty of others have earned that, at least. How about Tennessee running back Dylan Sampson? Or Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe, a guy who got a lot of votes early, after what he did to LSU?
The pool of players with a shot at New York may be expanding. The list of true contenders appears to be down to two, on its way to one.
(Photo of Ashton Jeanty: Loren Orr / Getty Images)
