Why Ahmad Hardy belongs in these early-season Heisman Trophy conversations
Published:
You have to scroll a bit, but you shouldn’t have to.
If you’re looking at the latest Heisman Trophy odds on DraftKings, you’ll have to work your way past 22 quarterbacks and 1 Jeremiah Smith to get to his name at 60-to-1. He’s not even the guy with the best Heisman odds on his own team. That’s Beau Pribula at 35-to-1. But eventually, you’ll get to his name and perhaps have the same realization that I did.
Ahmad Hardy is only tied for 24th in the Heisman odds? That doesn’t feel right. Not with the tear that he’s been on to start the season at Mizzou, where he just became the second player in program history to begin a year with 4-consecutive 100-yard rushing games. He’s all but a lock to join Mizzou’s 1,000-yard rusher list.
Baked into those 60-to-1 odds for Hardy is the fact that from 2016-23, Bryce Love was the only running back who even got an invite to New York. The Heisman odds — and the discussions — are always going to favor the quarterbacks. We are, however, coming off a year in which Ashton Jeanty ended the drought of running backs in New York, and he lost out to 2-way star Travis Hunter in the closest race in 15 years. And while he didn’t get to New York, Arizona State running back Cam Skattebo finished 5th and was all over Heisman ballots from coast to coast (including mine).
Nobody would sit here today and tell you that a running back is just as likely to win the award as current favorite, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza. But if we’re having a discussion about the best player in college football and it only includes Mendoza without mentioning non-quarterbacks like Hardy and Miami (FL) defensive end sensation Rueben Bain Jr., we’re doing this wrong.
Specific to Hardy, one might discount his early-season prowess because of the track record that Mizzou running backs have in the Eli Drinkwitz era, which watched Cody Schrader and Tyler Badie earn SEC rushing titles. That would be a mistake, though.
To call Hardy a “system back” would be disrespectful to his skill set and his already impressive body of work
It’s not just that Hardy has 600 rushing yards through 4 games, which is 73 more yards than any Power 4 player and a whopping 225 yards more than any SEC player. It’s not even just the efficiency of averaging 7.6 yards per carry, which is a mark that only 2 other Power Conference backs have achieved while surpassing 400 rushing yards through Week 4.
Watch Hardy. Within a few plays, it’ll sink in why he ran for 1,351 yards as a true freshman at Louisiana-Monroe last year, 1,012 of which came after first contact. You’ll quickly realize that it wasn’t a coincidence that Cam Skattebo and Ashton Jeanty were the only FBS running backs who had more missed tackles forced than Hardy (93) in 2024.
That skill set hasn’t just translated to the SEC; it’s progressing in the SEC. Through 4 games, Hardy forced 37 missed tackles, which is 10 more than any Power Conference running back. And if you think that’s just the byproduct of a rock solid Mizzou offensive line, which didn’t even have left tackle Cayden Green on Saturday night, explain something else. Why then does Hardy have 458 yards after first contact, which is 71 more than any other FBS running back?
Oh, I know the answer. Again, just watch Hardy.
And just in case that video didn’t do it justice to see what kind of pile Hardy was up against to muscle his way into the end zone, here’s what it looked like after he already broke the tackle of preseason All-American and fellow second-year star Dylan Stewart.
To recap, Hardy has more yards after first contact (458) than all but 5 FBS running backs have total. Last season, only 5 SEC running backs eclipsed more than 37 missed tackles forced for the entire season and Hardy has that going into the last weekend of September.
He’s special. If he can stay healthy — something that should never be assumed at that position — he’s in for a special season. It’s not too early to say that.
It is too early to make realistic comps to the SEC single-season rushing record season from 2015 Derrick Henry because for starters, he played in 15 games and in the 5 games leading up to the Heisman ceremony, he racked up an absurd 942 rushing yards and 9 rushing scores. That somewhat backloaded production followed the ever-scrutinized Heisman arc. It also helped that he dominated in a Heisman elimination game with Leonard Fournette.
Those 2 guys are the only SEC players to ever hit 1,900 rushing yards in a season (bowl game stats weren’t counted prior to 2002). Hardy’s current 13-game pace is 1,950 yards, but unless that 13th game is in an SEC championship, he’ll only get 12 games to make his Heisman case. That might be baked into those odds, as well, but Hardy is a massive reason why Mizzou is 4-0 with a pair of multi-score wins against Power Conference competition. With a schedule that’s easily the most favorable in the SEC, who is anyone to dismiss Mizzou’s chances of getting to Atlanta?
It’d be foolish to dismiss Hardy’s Heisman chances based on the team or the position he plays
If running backs from Boise State and Arizona State can finish in the top 5 in the Heisman voting, who’s to say an 1,700-yard regular season from an SEC running back would be dismissed? That’s probably what it would take for Hardy to have a real shot at New York, which would mean averaging 137.5 rushing yards in the final 8 regular season games. That’d be no small feat, but in a 2020s decade wherein 2 of the first 5 winners were non-quarterbacks, it might not be as far-fetched to say that type of season could get serious consideration than it would’ve been a couple years ago.
After the way the voting played out in 2024, we’re now past the 8-year stretch wherein Blake Corum, Bijan Robinson, Jonathan Taylor, Saquon Barkley, Najee Harris, Kenneth Walker III, Breece Hall, Travis Etienne, Chuba Hubbard and JK Dobbins were all unable to secure a New York invite. I suppose we should include Schrader in that group. He had 1,499 pre-Heisman rushing yards and finished No. 8 in the 2023 Heisman voting. Like Henry in 2015, Schrader followed the prototypical Heisman arc with a combined 841 rushing yards in his final 5 games of the regular season. Unlike Henry, though, it was too little, too late for Schrader, who didn’t hit 120 rushing yards against a Power Conference defense until Oct. 21 that season.
That won’t be an issue for Hardy. He burst onto the scene in such a way that, in theory, should make it challenging for him to follow the Heisman arc with a late-season surge. But maybe the lack of Heisman attention for his blistering start could work in his favor if he’s still racking up 100-yard performances late in the season. Time will tell.
Until then, take my advice. Watch Hardy.
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.
