Heisman Odds 2026: Track The Favorites
By Chris Wright
Last Updated:
- Heisman odds are available for the 2026 college football season.
- Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza, the betting favorite, won the 2026 Heisman Award.
- Track the 2026 Heisman odds for the favorites and longshots throughout the 2026-27 season.
Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza was the 2025 Heisman Trophy winner, well-deserved after leading the Hoosiers to an undefeated regular season, Big Ten Championship and, after winning the award, the national title.
Now, it’s time to turn the page to 2026. Here, we’ll track the Heisman odds heading into the new season of college football, with stars such as Texas‘s Arch Manning, Notre Dame’s CJ Carr, and Ole Miss‘s Trinidad Chambliss among those gunning for the honor.
We’ll discuss all that and more, further down this page as we explore all facets of the Heisman Trophy odds and, ultimately, who is announced as the 2026 winner of the Heisman Trophy — the most prestigious individual trophy in college football.
Top Heisman Contenders for 2026
As is typical, five quarterbacks lead the preseason pack for the 2026 Heisman Trophy as of late June 2026. The top odds among non-QBs go to Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, who is entering his third and perhaps final season with the Buckeyes.
We’ll go over the top contenders in greater detail a little further down the page. For now, check out Kalshi’s latest odds to win the Heisman Trophy in 2026:
You can also track the latest Heisman betting odds here. The below table will update as odds change:
CJ Carr Heisman Odds
Final 2025 stats: 195-for-293 (66.6%), 2,741 yards, 24 TDs, 6 INTs.
CJ Carr checks all the boxes heading into the new season. Following a strong redshirt freshman season, Carr enters his second year as a starter and is flanked by several great weapons such as Jordan Faison and Ohio State transfer Mylan Graham, plus 3 of 5 starters along the offensive line. He already impressed in Year 1, so a year of experience under his belt sets the stage for a truly special sophomore campaign.
Notre Dame’s schedule also favors Carr. The Fighting Irish get Miami and SMU at home, and perhaps their toughest matchup will be in Provo against BYU. With that kind of schedule, 12-0 is certainly on the table for the Fighting Irish. Even one loss gets the Irish into the Playoff, mind you.
As of June 26, Carr’s odds to win the Heisman Trophy sit at +750. Keep in mind, the last time a preseason Heisman favorite actually won the trophy was in 2014 when Marcus Mariota did it at Oregon.
Arch Manning Heisman Odds
Final 2025 stats: 248-for-404 (61.4%), 3,163 yards, 26 TDs, 7 INTs.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Arch Manning is fielding sky-high expectations heading into a crucial year for Texas football.
For perhaps the first time in his college career, those expectations are pretty fair. Manning posted a solid sophomore season after 2 years on the bench, throwing for 3163 yards and 26 touchdowns. Ina addition, Manning added 400 rushing yards and 10 rushing touchdowns. He wasn’t deadly accurate, but he showed promise and has the potential to take a massive step in 2026.
Like Carr, Manning also has an excellent squad around him. Led by Auburn transfer Cam Coleman and Ryan Wingo fresh off a 800-yard season, Manning will enjoy his most talented receiving corps to date. Unlike Carr, Texas’ schedule is tough — the Longhorns will face Ohio State, Tennessee and Oklahoma before the middle of October, ending the season against LSU and Texas A&M.
Can Manning rise to the challenge? As of June 26, his odds to win the 2026 Heisman Trophy sit at +800.
Darian Mensah Heisman Odds
Final 2025 stats: 334-for-500 (66.8%), 3,973 yards, 34 TDs, 6 INTs.
Darian Mensah perhaps has the highest ceiling of any player on this list. The former Duke-turned-Miami quarterback enters a fantastic situation at Miami, surrounded by RB Mark Fletcher and receivers Malachi Toney and Cooper Barkate.
He’s also just a highly-skilled passer, very accurate and seems to get better on 3rd down and in tough situations. He led Duke to the ACC title last season with a 2-TD performance against Virgina in the ACC championship game.
As of June 26, Mensah’s odds to win the Heisman trophy sit at +110
Trinidad Chambliss Heisman Odds
Final 2025 stats: 294-for-445 (66.1%), 3,937 yards, 22 TDs, 3 INTs.
Trinidad Chambliss shocked the nation last season coming off the bench for Ole Miss. The Rebels quarterback out of Ferris State led the Rebels to the College Football Playoff, beating Georgia and falling just short to Miami without HC Lane Kiffin.
Can he keep that momentum going? Another year in Division I will surely help him shore up some of the consistency problems he ran into last season, and it helps to have the nation’s best rusher in the backfield. Chambliss’s odds sit at +1100 as of late June.
Jeremiah Smith Heisman Odds
Final 2025 stats: 87 catches, 1,243 yards, 12 TDs.
Jeremiah Smith showed up on Heisman Odds lists last year, and for good reason. Despite not being a quarterback, Smith is the best receiver in the country and has one of the best quarterbacks in football throwing to him. Not to mention, Ohio State wide receivers are about as inevitable as a sunrise these days.
Let’s see if Smith can one-up a 1,243 yards season during his junior year.
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Heisman Trophy Betting Strategy for 2026
The winner of the Heisman Trophy is consistently one of the top college football futures betting markets. One wonders if John Heisman, the first athletic director of the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City and namesake of the trophy, envisioned the magnitude of today’s Heisman-sports betting market back in 1935. In a betting world, the odds aren’t great on that thought.
In order to bet on who wins the Heisman Trophy, follow these simple steps:
- Register for an online sportsbook account (SDS recommends Caesars Sportsbook).
- Log into your account and make a deposit.
- Find the college football betting menu and select the “futures” option.
- Select “Heisman Trophy” and then pick a player.
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There are plenty of legal online sportsbook options that offer Heisman Trophy betting. Here are some of the top options:
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Heisman Trophy 2026 News & Articles
Keep up with the latest 2026 Heisman Trophy odds by sticking with Saturday Down South‘s legendary news coverage.
Past Heisman Trophy Winners (NCAA College Football History)
Here is a look at the past Heisman Trophy winners, dating to the 2000 season. (Interestingly, Notre Dame has produced 7 Heisman winners — tied for second all-time. But Notre Dame hasn’t produced a Heisman winner since Tim Brown in 1987. Notre Dame’s CJ Carr is a betting favorite to win the Heisman in 2026.)
Heisman Trophy Winners by school (2000-present): Oklahoma (4), USC (4), Alabama (3), Florida State (2), Nebraska (1), Ohio State (1), Florida (1), Baylor. (1), Oregon (1), LSU (2), Auburn (1), Texas A&M (1), Louisville (1), Colorado (1), Indiana (1).
Heisman Trophy Winners by position: QB (20), RB (3), WR (2)
Heisman Betting Strategy
The Heisman Trophy race is often misunderstood by the general betting public. Learning how to how bet on college football futures is critical.
The general public still views Heisman candidates in the same way that political parties view their candidates — through the lens of electability. Or, in the case of the Heisman, viability. Conventional wisdom dictates that you have to be an established player from an established and powerful program to even entertain the notion that you could be enshrined as one of the game’s greats.
The preseason Heisman Trophy odds going into the 2019 college football season offer us an important example. Trevor Lawrence and Tua Tagovailoa entered the 2019 season as co-favorites to hoist the trophy at 3:1 odds. They had just played against each other in the national title game and were the faces of the two most dominant programs in the sport. To casual fans, it was a no-brainer for them to share the spotlight as preseason favorites. But to savvy veterans of the sports gambling space, the only thing noteworthy about two players separating themselves from the pack over the summer was that it inflated odds for everyone else.
To put it bluntly, the prevailing wisdom surrounding Heisman odds is wrong and that disconnect is born out in the final Heisman voting year after year. Only one preseason favorite has gone “wire-to-wire” since 2000. All it took from Marcus Mariota (9:2 preseason odds) was a near-flawless season (TD-INT Ratio 42:4) and a berth in the inaugural College Football Playoff. In contrast to Mariota’s favorite-to-recipient feat, is the fact that eight of the past 10 Heisman winners weren’t considered Top 10 candidates in the preseason by oddsmakers. Joe Burrow (40:1), Kyler Murray (30:1), Lamar Jackson (100:1) and Derrick Henry (25:1) represent a new wave of Heisman profitability for sports gamblers. And after a run of one-year wonders who took home the hardware as preseason “FIELD” bets (Cam Newton, Johnny Manziel, Jameis Winston) in the early 2010s, sportsbooks finally started to post more comprehensive preseason lists. The average offering has essentially doubled from the 20-25 player range in 2010 to a 35-40 range in 2019.
Heisman longshots have proven to be incredibly profitable in the past 10 years, but their odds quickly come down to earth once the general public has seen them play. The Heisman winners over the 2015-2019 seasons saw their preseason odds fall by an average of 68% from the preseason through Week 3.
This illustrates that for a gambler to capture worthwhile value, they often need to have skin in the game before the season starts.
The start of the 2020 season offered a similar situation as our 2019 example. Neither Lawrence nor Tagovailoa were Heisman finalists in 2019, but that didn’t stop oddsmakers from setting up the 2020 preseason Heisman odds in nearly identical fashion. Lawrence was joined by Justin Fields as a co-favorite falling in the 4:1 to 9:2 range. And as we now know, of course, neither Lawrence or Fields are expected to win the trophy.
Hedging Strategies When Betting The Heisman
Hedging is when a gambler places a bet on the opposite side of their original wager in order to reduce losses or to guarantee a profit. Despite the simplicity of the tactic, casual gamblers often fail to consider hedging opportunities. For small-stakes gamblers, in-game hedging might not be worth their time, but that isn’t true of futures betting. Even small wagers can net huge returns and are worthy of thoughtful hedge strategies.
Season-long futures for individual players and teams present a host of hedge opportunities, some clear and others more convoluted. As shown above, pundits and the public are awful at predicting who will end up as a Heisman finalist. In fact, four of the five Heisman Trophy presentations between 2015-2019 have included at least 1 finalist who entered the season as a 100:1 longshot or higher. Simply having a finalist with long odds can guarantee you money by properly hedging is a game-changer for most casual bettors.
If you were fortunate enough to place a bet on Joe Burrow before Week 3 of the 2019 season, you had a ticket paying out between 40:1 and 200:1 on the Bayou Bengal. Even if you had waited until the end of the regular season to hedge, the 3 other eventual finalists all presented decent value and insurance with Fields (6:1), Jalen Hurts (17:1), Chase Young (100:1) all offering handsome payouts.
While it appeared that Burrow was a “lock” by Week 13 during the 2019 season, this same hedge strategy would have saved Tagovailoa bettors the year prior. The Crimson Tide signal-caller was listed as a -900 favorite during Week 13 but would be overtaken by Kyler Murray just two weeks later. If you had spread out your risk by betting the likely finalists in Week 13 (Murray+600, Dwayne Haskins+6000, Will Grier+1100) you would have turned a gambling heartbreak into a decent payday.
If you are making preseason Heisman bets, targeting longshots with the potential to become finalists instead of winners is one way that you can turn an all-or-nothing proposition into a less volatile and more profitable long-term strategy. This brings into play running backs, wide receivers and defensive players that you might not have considered at all in previous seasons.
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Heisman Odds 2026 FAQ
Who was the Heisman Trophy betting favorite for the 2025 college football season?
Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy.
Who will win the Heisman Trophy for the 2026 college football season?
It's too soon to tell, but Texas QB Arch Manning, Notre Dame QB CJ Carr and Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith will all be mentioned in the conversation.
Which players has won the most Heisman Trophies all time?
Ohio State running back Archie Griffin has won the most Heisman Trophies (2), as he remains the only player to win the award more than once (1974 and 1975)
Which school has won the most Heisman Trophies?
Three teams feature players to win the award on seven occasions: Ohio State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame. Ohio State has yielded just six players to win the Heisman, however, as running back Archie Griffin remains the only man to win the award more than once. USC is next on the list with six Heismans, while Alabama has four, and six schools round out the top 11 with three Heisman Trophy winners (Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Michigan, Navy and Nebraska).
Managing Editor
A 30-time APSE award-winning editor with previous stints at the Miami Herald, The Indianapolis Star and News & Observer, Executive Editor Chris Wright oversees editorial operations for Saturday Down South.
