O’Gara: My 5 favorite Heisman Trophy value bets (and a true long shot) for 2024
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It’s been a tough 3-year stretch, but I stand by my mantra.
Friends don’t let friends bet on preseason Heisman Trophy favorites.
It’s not that I believe preseason favorites shouldn’t win. It’s that betting on them doesn’t make sense. At least not in the preseason. Why? Since 2009, Marcus Mariota has been the lone player to win the award after he was top 2 in the preseason Heisman odds. That doesn’t bode particularly well for Quinn Ewers and Carson Beck, both of whom are the favorites at +900 (via DraftKings).
(Side note: If you’re looking for a place to track all the Heisman Trophy odds, Saturday Down South has you covered with a page that you should bookmark right now.)
But yes, it’s been a tough 3-year stretch for my mantra. That’s because in 2021, Bryce Young was No. 3 in the preseason odds. In 2022, Caleb Williams was also No. 3 in the preseason odds at +1200. And at this time in 2023, Jayden Daniels was tied for No. 6 in the preseason odds at +1600.
Those are typically bets that I’d stay away from. It’s still only been 4 instances in the last 15 years of a Heisman winner who was in the top 3 of the preseason odds. The return on investment doesn’t line up well with what’s become more of a narrative-driven award.
Betting on the Heisman should be more of a dart throw. Picking 1 specific college player to have the best season — pre-Playoff — is a crapshoot for everyone, myself included. It’s why I’d rather give out bets I like as opposed to saying who I believe the top favorites are because the oddsmakers have already determined the latter.
So based on value — and my bruised, but still standing mantra — here are my 5 favorite preseason Heisman bets:
Nico Iamaleava, Tennessee QB (+2200 on DraftKings)
I realize that at 22-to-1, this isn’t the greatest value on the board. He’s No. 9 in the odds with all the hype in the world. Tennessee fans have been eager to see this guy for years, and the non-Tennessee fans are waiting for this guy to bust. Plus, betting that someone with 1 career college start to become the program’s first Heisman winner feels risky.
But here’s why I like this value. I think that whole “1 career start for a program with 0 Heisman winners” is baked into 22-to-1 odds. If Iamaleava does indeed get off to a buzz-worthy start, you’re not getting better than 22-to-1. Let’s remember that while last year was all about the grizzled veterans at quarterback, we had second-year players win the award in 2021 and 2022. Both Young and Williams were former 5-star quarterbacks who took off as Year 2 guys.
Iamaleava is playing for a coach who produced 5 top-8 scoring offenses during his 6 seasons as a head coach. In each of those seasons, Heupel’s starting quarterback had at least 32 total touchdowns. Iamaleava is more talented than any signal-caller that Heupel has worked with, and while it’s unfair to say the supporting cast will be as good as the 2022 squad, there are weapons galore. Bru McCoy, Squirrel White and Tulane transfer Chris Brazzel will lead one of the better receiving corps in America.
Ah, but now is the part where you tell me that you need to be a national championship contender to have a Heisman path. Nope. Neither of the last 2 winners were Playoff-bound. But if Iamaleava puts up 45 total touchdowns for a 9-3 Tennessee team that has a chance to make the 12-team Playoff, you’d better believe he’ll have a shot.
Noah Fifita, Arizona QB (+3000 on DraftKings)
Fifita might be my favorite returning player in college football. Arizona took off after he became the team’s starter. Of course, the elephant in the room is the fact that Jedd Fisch took off for Washington and Fifita will have to gel with a new staff. If Fisch was back in Tucson, he’s probably at +2000 or even better.
The good news for Fifita is that his high school teammate, Tetairoa McMillan, is back. The only returning receiver who had more yards than McMillan last year was South Alabama’s Caullin Lacy, who is now at Louisville. In other words, McMillan has an argument as the top returning receiver in the sport. Go ask Daniels how beneficial it is to have arguably the best receiver in the sport. Shoot, Daniels had 2 of the 5 best and we saw how that went.
Fifita won’t get the benefit of rushing touchdowns because he’s more of a run-to-throw guy, but he didn’t start a game until the last Saturday of September and still had 25 passing touchdowns in 9 starts against a deep Pac-12. The only guys who had more touchdown passes against Power 5 competition were Daniels, Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix, AKA the 3 quarterbacks who made it to New York. Fifita, with a full offseason as the starter, could take another step en route to some hardware in the Big Apple.
Jackson Arnold, Oklahoma QB (+3000 on DraftKings)
I have some concerns that Arnold will run into a gauntlet schedule that’ll force him into 2-3 of those dud games that can take a guy out of the Heisman race. There’s also a chance that with a completely new-look offensive line, Arnold’s clock gets sped up and he makes too many mistakes.
But that’s shown in the 30-to-1 value. Also, the 12-team Playoff could allow for even more grace for Heisman candidates. Arnold isn’t as decorated as fellow 2023 quarterbacks like Iamaleava and Arch Manning, but the former 5-star has a ton of excitement in Norman. His mobility will be an asset, especially if that aforementioned offensive line doesn’t hold up.
Fortunately for Arnold, he’s got one of the best group of pass-catchers in America. Purdue transfer Deion Burks is already a thing (his spring game performance was a sight), Nic Anderson is a home-run play waiting to happen, Andrel Anthony was the team’s leading receiver when he got hurt last year and if Jalil Farooq is healthy, he’ll add yet another veteran presence after a 694-yard season.
Arnold could put up massive numbers with new OC Seth Littrell, and dare I say, he has a chance to follow that Heisman narrative as an Oklahoma quarterback who doesn’t necessarily get held to the Lincoln Riley-Oklahoma QB standard.
Speaking of Riley …
Miller Moss, USC QB (+4000 on DraftKings)
Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that I can have a Riley quarterback at 40-to-1? That’s extremely rare. Yes, Moss is locked in a battle with UNLV transfer Jayden Maiava. Riley also said that there’s “no question” that Moss is the leader coming out of spring and that he’d be the starter if the season began today (H/T Ryan Dyrud).
I can close my eyes and envision Moss lighting up LSU’s defense in a season-opening game in Vegas and watching those odds shift in a hurry. He would still have a long way to go, but we saw how shredding the Tigers helped get someone like Jordan Travis vault in the Heisman conversation.
Like Travis, Moss is perceived as more of a late bloomer in this era of quarterbacks. Here’s the thing, though. You can say that it’s a knock on him that he didn’t start until the bowl game — he’s essentially USC’s version of Garrett Nussmeier — but is not starting over Williams really a fair critique? The USC guys who were ahead of him on the depth chart at different points were Williams, Jaxson Dart and incumbent starter Kedon Slovis, who was only there for Moss’ true freshman season in 2021.
Maybe what we saw in the bowl game was real and Moss is ready for takeoff.
CJ Baxter, Texas RB (+8000 on DraftKings)
Let’s get the bad out of the way first. It’s all about the position. Last year, I did a full breakdown of the lack of running back representation in New York. Since Derrick Henry beat out Christian McCaffrey for the award in 2015, Bryce Love (2017) is the only running back who got a Heisman invite. Guys like Jonathan Taylor, Saquon Barkley and Bijan Robinson didn’t get invited once in their prolific college careers.
So why can Baxter do what Robinson, who finished No. 9 in the 2022 Heisman voting, couldn’t in Austin? A few reasons.
For starters, he’s going to be playing on a team that’s better than what Robinson had in 2022. Texas will likely start as a top-4 team on the heels of a Playoff berth in which Baxter was behind Jonathan Brooks on the depth chart, yet he still racked up over 800 scrimmage yards. Brooks is off to the NFL, which means Baxter gets the invaluable opportunity to be a bell-cow back in a Steve Sarkisian offense (we should talk more about Sarkisian having the top running back drafted in 3 out of the last 4 years).
The former No. 1 running back recruit in the 2023 class has a unique ability to break through contact, which will be a weapon both as a traditional runner and as a pass-catcher out of the backfield (he had 24 catches as a backup). Combine that with a Texas offensive line that returns 4 starters and yeah, there’s a lot to like, even in the likely event that he shares some of that workload with Jaydon Blue.
All eyes will be on that passing game with Ewers back as the preseason Heisman favorite. But he missed multiple games due to injury each of the last 2 seasons and if Baxter emerges as the best player for a top-5 Texas team, he could end the running back drought.
And my favorite true long shot … Haynes King, Georgia Tech QB (+15000 on DraftKings)
I know he’s got 49 players with better odds, but answer a multiple-choice question for me. King:
- A) Was 1 of 4 Power 5 QBs w/ 25 passing TDs & 10 rushing TDs
- B) Was T-No. 6 among Power 5 QBs in total TDs responsible for (37)
- C) Was No. 11 among Power 5 QBs in total yards
- D) Will lead an offense that’s No. 7 in FBS in percentage of returning offensive production
- E) All the above
It’s “E.” It’s always “E.”
Yes, King also threw more interceptions than all but 1 FBS player in 2023. Obviously, he’s not winning the Heisman unless he cleans that up. It is, however, worth noting that Deshaun Watson had 15 pre-Heisman interceptions and still finished No. 2 in 2016. You can make mistakes, as long as you don’t have those grenade games. Granted, Watson also wasn’t starting like Haynes is as a massive long shot.
But again, this is where the 12-team Playoff comes into play. If King can lead Georgia Tech to another step forward and at least put the Yellow Jackets in that conversation late in the season in a down ACC, he’s the type of guy who can quietly emerge into the conversation with a 45-touchdown season that sprinkles in some viral moments en route to New York.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
