Heisman Odds 2023: Michael Penix surges into lead. Can Caleb Williams hold him off and win it again?

2023 Heisman Odds — Who will win?

The 2023 Heisman odds for the current college football season are here.

Last year, USC QB Caleb Williams won the Heisman. He was only a true sophomore in 2022, so he’s back for (at least) 1 more season with the Trojans. If he wants to win the coveted award again, though, he’ll have to be even better this fall.

As the reigning Heisman winner, Williams enters the year as the heavy favorite to win again. But that is not an easy task to accomplish. The only player to win the award 2 times was former Ohio State great Archie Griffin, who won the Heisman in 1974 and in 1975.

Already we’ve seen the board shuffle. Quarterbacks take up the first 14 spots — but Williams no longer is at the top. Check out the full Heisman odds below:

	🏈 Heisman Trophy Odds 2022
📲 Sportsbook Odds Utilized	Caesars Sportsbook
💰 Top Promo	Up to $1,250 on Caesars
✍️ Written/Created by	Robby Sabo
⏰ Odds Last Updated on	May 24, 2022
✅ Provided by	Saturday Down South

Who can challenge Williams for the Heisman in 2023? There are some other intriguing players with decent odds to win the prestigious award.

Including a new favorite — Washington QB Michael Penix Jr., who is off to a torrid start after leading the nation in passing yards per game in 2022. Texas QB Quinn Ewers and Oregon QB Bo Nix are closing fast, too.

Are you noticing a trend here? Oddsmakers clearly favor a quarterback to win the Heisman in 2023. In fact, you have to go to the No. 15 spot on the list to find the non-QB with the best odds to take home the trophy. That would be Michigan RB Blake Corum.

No matter how the 2023 Heisman race shakes out, fortunately for the football-hungry fans of the SEC and elsewhere, Saturday Down South has the country covered via 2023 Heisman Trophy odds from an in-depth and expert perspective.

Hop in the game today with an incredible welcome bonus of up to $1,250 from Caesars Sportsbook:

Heisman Trophy Odds Movement

• March 24, 2023: Caleb Williams sits as the favorite to win the trophy for a second time, checking in with +460 odds. These odds are average odds across a number of major sportsbooks.
• Dec. 10, 2022: USC QB Caleb Williams wins the 2022 Heisman Trophy.

Heisman Trophy 2023 News & Articles

Keep up with the latest 2023 Heisman Trophy odds by sticking with Saturday Down South’s legendary news coverage.

Heisman Trophy 2023 Preseason Favorites

Caleb Williams (QB, USC)

Despite the difficulty of repeating as the Heisman winner, Williams is the current favorite to do just that. He’ll also be putting together his résumé to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Williams finished the 2022 season with 4,537 passing yards, 42 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. He also added 382 yards and 10 scores as a runner.

That’s the baseline for what he has to do to win again. If he doesn’t exceed those numbers in 2023, some voters won’t want to put him at the top of their ballots. That’s why it is so hard to win the Heisman for a second year in a row. But if anyone is capable of taking another step forward after winning the Heisman, it’s Williams.

Drake Maye (QB, North Carolina)

North Carolina has a very manageable schedule in 2023. In fact, the only games that look like they could give the Tar Heels some major trouble are a Week 1 matchup against South Carolina in Charlotte and a trip to Clemson on Nov. 18. That trip to Clemson is one to keep an eye on, though.

That’s in the penultimate week of the college football season, so it would be a great opportunity for Maye to have a big game and get national analysts talking about his “Heisman moment.”

Who’s Going to Win the 2023 Heisman Trophy?

With Williams winning in 2022, a streak of 3-straight Heisman winners from the SEC was snapped. Alabama’s Bryce Young and DeVonta Smith, and LSU’s Joe Burrow, were the three southeast ballers who took the hardware home.

However, as mentioned above, Tennessee’s Joe Milton is the SEC player with the best odds this year. If he starts the year slowly while trying to replace Hendon Hooker on Rocky Top, or if LSU’s Jayden Daniels doesn’t have the same impact he had last season, the SEC could find itself on the outside looking in when it comes to the Heisman ceremony this year.

Williams could certainly go back-to-back, but that is an incredibly difficult thing to do. USC might have to go undefeated and make the College Football Playoff for Williams to be a legitimate candidate for a repeat win when all is said and done.

2023 Heisman Prediction

For now, our pick is Florida State QB Jordan Travis. However, we’ll know by the end of September if Travis is a viable candidate or not. FSU starts the 2023 season with a game in Orlando against an LSU team that won the SEC West in 2022. Then the Seminoles travel to Clemson on Sept. 23 for a huge game. If Travis shines in those matchups and FSU wins, he’ll get a lot Heisman buzz.

Prediction: Florida State QB Jordan Travis

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.

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, along with a huge bonus bet at Caesars Sportsbook.

Caesars Sportsbook

Caesars Sportsbook is Saturday Down South’s top sports-betting recommendation for SEC fans everywhere. Since acquiring William Hill, Caesars’ app and platform have impressed the masses in a variety of ways.

Get started today for $1,100 in first-time user bets ($1,100 first-bet insurance) to bet on the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner at DraftKings Sportsbook.

DraftKings Sportsbook

DraftKings Sportsbook offers up to $1,060 of bonus 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.

Get started today for $1,050 in first-time user bets ($50 bonus bet and $1000 deposit bonus) to bet on the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner at DraftKings Sportsbook.

FanDuel Sportsbook

FanDuel Sportsbook offers a first-rate app experience and an industry-best $1,000 No-Sweat First Bet for new users. Like other top sportsbooks, FanDuel has expansive college football betting options and provides a Heisman market throughout the year.

Get started today for a $1,000 No-Sweat First Bet to wager on the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner at FanDuel Sportsbook.

Barstool Sportsbook

Barstool Sportsbook is the self-described “disruptors of the industry,” and it has not failed to live up to that tagline. Dave Portnoy, Big Cat and the crew have carved out a nice niche in the college football sports-betting category and they are not going anywhere, anytime soon.

Get started today for a $1,000 bet insurance while wagering on the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner at BetMGM.

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.

Get started today for a $1,000 bet insurance while gambling on the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner at BetMGM.

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 (1), Auburn (1), Texas A&M (1), Louisville (1)

Winners by position: quarterback (18), 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.

Heisman Odds 2023 FAQ

Robby Sabo

Robby Sabo is a co-founder, developer and credentialed New York Jets content creator for Jets X-Factor | Jet X, which includes Sabo's Sessions (in-depth film breakdowns) and Sabo with the Jets. Host: Underdog Jets Podcast with Wayne Chrebet and Sabo Radio. Member: Pro Football Writers of America. Coach: Port Jervis (NY) High School. Washed up strong safety and 400M runner. Founder: Elite Sports NY - ESNY (sold in 2020). SEO: XLM