Handicapping the winner of each season’s Heisman Trophy, given to the player voted to have been the best in all college football, is a challenge each year for sports betting enthusiasts.
Much like the NFL MVP awards, the trophy goes predominantly to quarterbacks these days.
College football has become even more of a pass-first game on the offensive side of the ball than the NFL has, which why, looking at the last 10 winners, eight have been quarterbacks, one has been a wide receiver, and one has been a tailback.
Let’s look at the odds for the top contenders, and then consider some of their cases to win the most storied individual trophy in college sports.
Heisman Trophy Winners: Top 10 Candidates for 2024/25 Season | NCAA Football Odds provided by Xbet Sportsbook
- Dillon Gabriel, QB, Oregon +640
- Carson Beck, QB, Georgia +780
- Quinn Ewers, QB, Texas +930
- Jaxson Dart, QB, Ole Miss +1300
- Jalen Milroe QB, Alabama +1325
- Will Howard, QB, Ohio State +1400
- Nico Iamaleava, QB, Tennessee +1425
- Garrett Nussmeier, QB, LSU +1825
- Cam Ward, QB, Miami-FL +1975
- Riley Leonard, QB, Notre Dame +2100
Dillon Gabriel
Obviously, the odds list is quarterback-heavy in 2024 as well. Gabriel enters his sixth season as a starting quarterback after playing for UCF from 2019-2022 (excluding the COVID-19 year).
He spent the 2023 season with the Oklahoma Sooners and is now with the Oregon Ducks as they enter the Big Ten.
He already has 49 career starts under his belt, and the Ducks enter the preseason rankings at #3 in the nation.
Carson Beck is virtually the co-favorite; Beck enters his second season as the Georgia Bulldogs’ starter after the departure of Stetson Bennett IV.
The Bulldogs lead the preseason AP and Coaches’ polls, and Beck threw for almost 4,000 yards in his first season as the starter.
^CFB 2024 HEISMAN TROPHY
— CFB Focus 🏈 (@cffmwachsman) July 24, 2024
FAVORITES
1 QB Carson Beck/Georgia
2 QB Quinn Ewers/Texas
3 QB Dillon Gabriel/Oregon
4 QB Jaxson Dart/Ole Miss
5 QB Jalen Milroe/Alabama
6 RB Ollie Gordon III/Oklahoma State
7 QB Nico Iamaleava/Tennessee
8 QB Will Howard/Ohio State
9 QB Cam Ward/Miami
10… pic.twitter.com/GFSmFL44NI
This trend continues as the top six players on the odds list are quarterbacks who have starting experience for the teams sitting in the top six slots in the preseason polling, so we see that the odds are largely following projected team performance.
Nico Iamaleava
If you’re looking for someone offering a little more value, Iamaleava is an interesting possibility.
He was a five-star recruit coming out of the 2023 class, and he enters as a redshirt freshman.
He started for Tennessee in the Citrus Bowl and accounted for four touchdowns in a 35-0 shellacking of the Iowa Hawkeyes, a team known for a stout defense.
Another value pick is Garrett Nussmeier. He is a junior who backed up Jayden Daniels at LSU, who won the Heisman Trophy last year and is now the QB1 for the Washington Commanders, for two seasons.
^Transfers
Of the top ten quarterbacks on the odds list, six have transferred at one time or another in their careers.
Gabriel, Riley Leonard (Duke to Notre Dame), Cam Ward (Washington State to Miami) and Will Howard (Kansas State to Ohio State) transferred during this past off-season.
Quinn Ewers and Jaxson Dart have also transferred at earlier points in their careers.
^Last Winners
Recent Heisman Trophy history has a variety of backgrounds for winners. Daniels had been the LSU starter for two years after coming over from Arizona State.
Caleb Williams had been the starter for half a season at Oklahoma before following Lincoln Riley to USC and winning the Heisman.
In 2021, Bryce Young won the trophy in his first year starting for Alabama after backing up Mac Jones the year before.
It will be interesting to see if going from a four-team playoff to a 12-team bracket will open things up a bit, as more teams will be considered “successful” when the voters pick a winner near the end of November and the start of December.
^NCAA Football Kick Off Schedule
- Week Zero: Saturday, Aug. 24
- Florida State vs. Georgia Tech (in Dublin, Ireland)
- Norfolk State vs. Florida A&M
- SMU at Nevada
- Montana State at New Mexico
- Delaware State at Hawaii
- Week 1: Thursday, Aug. 29 to Sunday, Sept. 1
- North Carolina at Minnesota
- Clemson vs. Georgia
- Miami (FL) at Florida
- Notre Dame at Texas A&M
- Penn State at West Virginia
- Georgia State at Georgia Tech
- North Dakota State at Colorado
- South Dakota State at Oklahoma State
- LSU vs. Southern California
- North Carolina Central vs. Alabama State
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