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Filling out 3 lines on my Heisman Trophy ballot last Sunday wasn’t nearly as taxing as trying to slot 12 teams into the College Football Playoff bracket. But it did at least give me a feel for some of the tough decisions Warde Manuel and his selection committee had to make earlier in the day.
The top 2 picks were fairly obvious. It was simply a matter of deciding how to order them.
The decision came in narrowing a long list of other impressive candidates to the one I determined most worthy of making the trip to New York as a finalist for the sport’s most prestigious honor.
According to the official Heisman website, the award is presented annually to “the outstanding college football player in the United States whose performance epitomizes great ability combined with diligence, perseverance and hard work.”
It’s an ambiguous criterion that’s open to interpretation. And not every voter will interpret it the same way when filling out their ballots.
Statistics are obviously important. But I also consider other factors including consistency, level of competition and clutch performances in big spots to determine my choices. Like my colleague and fellow Heisman voter Connor O’Gara, I waited until all the games were played before submitting my ballot just before the deadline.
I also waited until after the trophy is announced to reveal my picks since we’re sworn to secrecy to preserve the suspense surrounding the ceremony. Now that Travis Hunter has been announced as the winner, here’s how I filled out my 2024 Heisman Trophy ballot:
First four out …
- Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel
- Arizona State running back Cam Skattebo
- Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord
- Army quarterback Bryson Daily
Gabriel falls into the category of the best player on the nation’s best team. But his numbers backed up his status as a Heisman finalist. His completion percentage of .731 ranks No. 2 nationally and his ratio of 28 touchdowns to only 6 interceptions, along with his 3,558 passing yards, are outstanding. But they just didn’t stack up compared to those posted by Miami record-breaker Cam Ward.
Skattebo only began gaining widespread recognition late in the season as his Sun Devils began to creep into the Playoff picture. But the 5-11, 215-pound workhorse has been a consistent force in the running and passing game all season and a major reason for Arizona State’s surprise emergence as Big 12 champions. With 1,568 yards on the ground and another 306 yards on 37 receptions, he’s 1 of only 2 FBS players to account for more than 2,000 yards from scrimmage while scoring at least 20 touchdowns.
McCord might have been scapegoated for Ohio State losing to Michigan last year. But as things have turned out, maybe Ryan Day – the coach who ran him off – might be the problem. Ohio State’s loss has been Syracuse’s gain. McCord proved to be the perfect fit for new coach Fran Brown’s offense by setting school records for passing yardage and touchdowns while leading the Orange to 9 wins and a No. 20 national ranking, Yes, he had 12 interceptions. But nearly half of them came in 1 game. And his 4,326 yards are the most in the nation.
Don’t judge Daily by Saturday’s performance against Navy. He might be the most underappreciated player in college football. He’s built like a linebacker and runs like a fullback, and he’s a major reason why Army is 11-2 and the American Athletic Conference champion. His 1,532 rushing yards rank 9th in the FBS and his 29 touchdowns were tied with Ashton Jeanty for the most nationally going into Saturday’s rivalry game against Navy. He also threw for 942 yards and 9 touchdowns. Daily ran for 100 or more yards 10 times this season, including 126 and 4 touchdowns in last week’s ACC championship win against Tulane.
No. 3 on my ballot – Miami QB Cam Ward
If the final ballots were due after Week 10, Ward would have been my top choice. He averaged 349 yards, 24.1 completions and 3.2 touchdowns per game through the first 9 games. All ranked among the top 2 among FBS passers. More important, his team was undefeated and ranked No. 4 in the nation.
Ward’s performance was instrumental in his team’s success. His heroics helped produce several “Heisman moments” while engineering late comebacks to beat both Virginia Tech and Cal, the latter of which erased a 25-point second-half deficit.
While losses to Georgia Tech and Syracuse in the final 3 games didn’t help Ward’s candidacy, it’s not as if they were disqualifying factors, either. The Heisman is an individual award, not a team award. And Ward’s stats – averages of 326 yards, 25.6 completions, 2.3 touchdowns with only 1 interception – in the final 3 games were almost identical to those of the first 10.
His body of work, which included school records for passing yards (4,123), completions (293) and touchdowns (36) was good enough to win the Davey O’Brien Award as the nation’s top quarterback. He didn’t win the Heisman because 2 other contenders enhanced their impressive resumes with much stronger closing arguments.
No. 2 on my ballot – Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty
Not since Indiana State’s Larry Bird in basketball has one individual athlete been so instrumental in lifting a mid-major program into the national spotlight the way Jeanty has Boise State.
The junior running back has accounted for 41% of his team’s total offense per game and 45% of its touchdowns this season. His 2,497 rushing yards aren’t just 131 shy of the FBS single-season record set by Heisman winner Barry Sanders in 1988. That’s more rushing yards than 115 teams, including Playoff participants Oregon, Georgia Texas, Ohio State, Indiana, SMU and Clemson.
And don’t think that he’s been piling up his stats against lesser competition, just because his team plays in a Group of 5 conference. Jeanty went for 192 yards, averaging 7.7 per carry, and 3 touchdowns against top-seeded Oregon in Week 2. In almost any other year, the Doak Walker Award winner’s 209-yard performance in last week’s Mountain West Championship Game win against UNLV would have been a Heisman-winning exclamation point.
Unfortunately for Jeanty, this year there was also a unicorn in the equation.
No. 1 on my ballot – Colorado WR/CB Travis Hunter
Before capturing the Heisman on Saturday night, Hunter won the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver and the Chuck Bednarik Award as the top defender. It’s an unprecedented combination made all the more appropriate by the fact that the Bednarik Award is named for the game’s last great 2-way player.
While Hunter shares that distinction with the former Penn and Philadelphia Eagles legend, the closest comp to his unprecedented 2024 performance is that of 1997 Heisman winner Charles Woodson. The difference is that Woodson was primarily a defensive player and punt returner who only occasionally took offensive snaps as a receiver. Woodson had only 11 catches for 231 yards and 2 touchdowns to go along with his nation’s best 7 interceptions during his Heisman season.
Compared those numbers to Hunter’s this year. He’s caught 92 passes for 1,152 yards and 15 touchdowns on one side of the ball. On the other, he’s amassed 4 interceptions, 11 passes defended and 32 tackles as a lockdown cornerback. And those aren’t even the most impressive statistics he’s compiled.
According to Pro Football Focus, Hunter has recorded 713 snaps on defense and 672 on offense, meaning that he was rarely off the field. The only things that surpass Hunter’s versatility are his showmanship and knack for making impossible catches become possible.
Not since the concept of 2-platoon football became the norm in the mid-1960s has anyone been so dominant on both sides of the ball.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
