Heisman Odds 2021: Spencer Rattler, DJ Uiagalelei, Bryce Young Favored

SDS Graphic, USATSI

The 2021 Heisman Trophy race took an unexpected turn over championship weekend as Alabama’s DeVonta Smith became the odds-on favorite to win the award. In the end, the game-breaking weapon took home one of the most coveted trophies in sports.

Smith became the first wide receiver to take home the award with Michigan’s Desmond Howard in 1991. He also captured the 2020 National Championship with fellow Heisman chaser Mac Jones.

Now, with these 2020 Heisman Trophy finalists ready to kickstart NFL careers, a new group emerges led by Oklahoma’s Spencer Rattler, Clemson’s DJ Uiagalelei and Alabama’s Bryce Young.

Note: Tennessee online sports betting is now live. Featured odds are courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook and FanDuel Sportsbook.

2021 Heisman Trophy Odds/Timeline

Note: DraftKings Sportsbook‘s Heisman odds will be used here.

Let’s take a look at how the Heisman Trophy odds stack up as we head into the summer. Considering the odds change frequently, attacking it in a timeline manner is the only sensical way to approach the Heisman Trophy odds.

July 6, 2021:

May 2021:

January 2021

Heisman Trophy 2021 Favorites

Spencer Rattler +550 (QB, Oklahoma)

Whether or not you have confidence in Spencer Rattler matters very little to the kid himself. The young Sooner quarterback recently dangled a strong message prior to the 2021 college football season.

https://twitter.com/SpencerRattler/status/1397983430747459586

Rattler, 20, threw for 3,031 yards, 28 touchdowns and seven interceptions over the course of 11 games in 2020—his first as the team’s full-time starting quarterback. The Phoenix, AZ native enters the 2021 season as the odds-on favorite to capture the Heisman Trophy.

DJ Uiagalelei +600 (QB, Clemson)

No Trevor Lawrence, no problem. (Well, at least for the most part.) When stud Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence missed a couple of November games this past season, young DJ Uiagalelei stepped right in and impressed.

Throwing for 914 yards and five touchdowns to no interceptions, Uiagelelei did his part in the two starts he made. Unfortunately, he lost the Notre Dame game in South Bend, IN, but it wasn’t because of the quarterback.

Uiagelelei is currently +600 to win the 2021 Heisman Trophy.

Bryce Young +800 (QB, Alabama)

Bryce Young enjoyed a nice freshman season. The Pasadena, CA native watched Mac Jones help DeVonta Smith capture the Heisman Trophy during another Alabama National Championship year.

With Jones in New England with the Patriots, it’s now Young’s team. The overwhelming consensus is that the kid is more than ready to take over as the on-field leader for Nick Saban. The oddsmakers agree, placing him third in the Heisman Trophy odds list at +800.

Who’s Going to Win the Heisman Trophy? –

The last two Heisman Trophy winners played in the SEC. Alabama’s DeVonta Smith and LSU’s Joe Burrow are those two southeast ballers who took the hardware home.

Never count out the Big 12, however, as the conference’s ability to put up points is undisputed. Similar to the mini-Oklahoma run in 2017 and 2018, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, quarterback Spencer Rattler is currently leading the pack at +550.

2021 Heisman Prediction

It’s tough to pick against Rattler at this moment. Granted, it’s still springtime, so a lot can change, but Rattler has everything set up for an extraordinary statistical 2021 campaign in the free-flowing Big 12.

Prediction: Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler.

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.
• 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.

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 ones:

DraftKings Sportsbook

DraftKings Sportsbook offers up to $1,060 of free bets and has a robust offering of college football games and futures markets. Perhaps most importantly, DraftKings Sportsbook is among the best online operators when it comes to offering both in-game live betting options and pregame profit boost specials.

States available: TN, PA, NJ, CO, IL, WV, IA, IN, VA, MI

Click here to get up to $1,050 in first-time user bets ($50 risk-free bet and $1000 deposit bonus) in order to wager on the Heisman winner at DraftKings Sportsbook.

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FanDuel Sportsbook

FanDuel Sportsbook offers a first-rate app experience and an industry-best $1,000 risk-free first bet for new users. Like other top sportsbooks, FanDuel has expansive college football betting options and provides a Heisman market throughout the year.

States available: PA, NJ, WV, IN, IA, CO, TN, IL

Click here to get a $1,000 risk-free first bet and wager on the Heisman winner at FanDuel Sportsbook.

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BetMGM

BetMGM is backed by one of America’s most prestigious gaming brands and offers new players a $500 first deposit match. Like its competition, BetMGM offers a full range of college football games and futures markets, including Heisman odds.

States available: NJ, IN, CO, TN

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Past Heisman Trophy Winners

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

Winners by school:  Oklahoma (4),  Alabama (3), Florida State (2), USC (3), Nebraska (1), Ohio State (1), Florida (1), Baylor. (1), Oregon (1), LSU (1), Auburn (1), Texas A&M (1), Louisville (1)

Winners by position: quarterback (17), running back (3)

Heisman Betting History

A look at the recent Heisman Trophy winners, as well as their opening and closing odds.

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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