Heisman Odds 2025: Track The Favorites

Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter was the 2024 Heisman Trophy winner, well-deserved after starring at defensive back (11 PDs, 4 INTs) and wide receiver (1,258 yards, 15 TDs).

Who will lead the Heisman chase in 2025? Ohio State wide receiver and recent national champion Jeremiah Smith immediately comes to mind, as do Garrett Nussmeier, Ryan Williams and Arch Manning. Former Tennessee starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava was a dark-horse candidate until he transferred. Of course, there could be a new star on the scene this fall, too.

We’ll discuss all that and more, further down this page.

Odds to Win The 2025 Heisman Trophy

There’s still a long way to go until the start of the 2025-26 season (on August 23, 2025), but early contenders are not hard to pinpoint.

Quarterbacks lead the way, but there’s already been some movement. Former Tennessee starter Nico Iamaleava, once among the Heisman favorites, has fallen after transferring. As of June 9, 2025, Texas QB Arch Manning is the betting favorite.

Here are the latest, automatically updated odds for the 2025-26 Heisman.

LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier is the leading returning quarterback in the SEC after throwing for 4,052 yards in 2024. Nussmeier has a chance to become the only LSU quarterback to throw for 3,000 yards in a season twice in a career.

Arch Manning has patiently waited 2 years to take over at Texas. He could become the third Manning to throw for 3,000 yards in a season.

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How to Bet on the Heisman Trophy

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 the Heisman winner, 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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Where to Bet on the Heisman Trophy

There are plenty of legal online sportsbook options that offer Heisman Trophy betting. Here are some of the top options:

Caesars Sportsbook

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FanDuel Sportsbook

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BetMGM

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Heisman Trophy 2025 News & Articles

Keep up with the latest 2025 Heisman Trophy odds by sticking with Saturday Down South’s legendary news coverage.

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Past Heisman Trophy Winners (NCAA College Football History)

Here is a look at the past Heisman Trophy winners, dating back to the 2000 season.

Winners by school:  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).

Winners by position: QB (19), RB (3), WR (2)

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Heisman Betting Strategy

The Heisman Trophy race is often misunderstood by the general betting public. 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 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 Heisman 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 Heisman 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 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 2025 FAQ

Who is the Heisman Trophy betting favorite for the 2024 college football season?

Colorado WR/DB Travis Hunter is the current betting favorite.

Who will win the Heisman Trophy for the 2025 college football season?

It's too soon to tell, but LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier, Florida QB DJ Lagway and potentially Texas QB Arch Manning 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).