The Heisman Trophy has long been, basically, a quarterback award. Wide receiver DeVonta Smith won it in 2020, and defensive end Aidan Hutchinson was at least invited to New York last year for the ceremony, but they may as well change the trophy from a stiff-arming football player to one completing a throwing motion. Again this season, there does seem to be a clear front-runner who emerged late in November to steal the award—because Heisman candidacies are about platform in addition to on-field exploits.
That is why the finalists may not have other clearly great players, like Michigan’s Blake Corum or Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker or Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. Also as far as invites go, the Heisman Trust will not invite players who aren’t within striking distance of winning via the vote tabulation. They can invite as many as five players, but sometimes choose not to for that reason. And so we arrive at this year’s Heisman finalists.
Caleb Williams: QB, USC
It’s not just what Williams did on two healthy legs this season that has him in pole position to win the Heisman; it’s also what he did on one in the Pac-12 championship game with a significant hamstring injury.
Watching Williams on any given Saturday will include an array of throws from different arm angles, on different platforms, oftentimes out of structure when all hell has broken loose around him. He has been box-office worthy from the moment he first took the field at Oklahoma last season, all the way to Hollywood at USC.
Williams has broken school passing records for total touchdowns, total offensive yards and rushing yards by a QB. If he plays in the Cotton Bowl he’ll likely become USC’s single-season passing leader, and he has only four interceptions in 407 attempts. He is an offense unto himself in a style made of all his own freewheeling, with messages painted on his nails and a mouthpiece dangling at all times. If Williams wins, he’ll be the seventh Trojans player to win the award, and the first to do it with anywhere near this type of blueprint.
C.J. Stroud: QB, Ohio State
From a yardage and completion percentage standpoint, the Buckeyes quarterback has not been this year what he was last year, and that’s even though he’s played in 12 games this season compared to 11 at this point in 2021. His 37 passing touchdowns, though, are tied for the most nationally. Last year, Stroud was adeptly distributing the ball to Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave and Jaxon Smith-Njigba; this year, that became Emeka Egbuka and Marvin Harrison Jr.
The names have changed, but Stroud’s dazzling ability to get them the ball has not.
Nothing about Stroud’s production in this offense is cheap, with an adjusted passing yards per attempt number of 10.7 (second nationally) that’s just a tick above two other Heisman finalists. Perhaps he’s hindered a touch by the Buckeyes’ championship-or-bust mentality, and just as last year, one wonders what would have been different had his Buckeyes beat Michigan late in the season. His return to New York is well earned either way.
Max Duggan: QB, TCU
Duggan has always been about the dramatic comeback. On the field, he’s led multiple of them for TCU this season. Off the field, he’s beaten the odds as well.
If there had ever been an example of leaving it all out on the field trope, the QB did that against K-State. It is the pattern of his career to continue to get off the mat when knocked down. He was benched to start the 2022 season, and yet here he was leading these Frogs. He played much of the ’19 season on a busted foot, opting not to wear a boot so he wasn’t photographed, and survived emergency surgery in ’20 after a health screening revealed he was born with a heart condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome.
The pure uncut dual-threat Duggan came in the Big 12 championship game against Kansas State, where he accounted for 95 yards rushing by himself to will the Frogs down the field to tie the game and send it to overtime.
As he threw the pass that converted the two-point try, he sunk to the turf in exhaustion. The heroics are what you notice, pulling them out of nowhere to put these Horned Frogs in a Playoff in a way nobody saw coming. The Frogs have been plenty fun this season, but he is their soul and he hasn’t let them down yet.
Stetson Bennett: QB, Georgia
The former walk-on has been underrated throughout his career; perhaps with this invite to New York, Bennett is finally properly rated. No matter what the physical limitations to his game are compared to first-round NFL locks, Bennett has been the steady hand that has now steered the Dawgs to one national championship and in striking distance of another, all with only one loss over the last two seasons. He is efficient, cool under pressure and a slippery runner if a defense loses track of him.
The way Bennett’s game gets portrayed reads as if he’s an accessory, serving to denigrate how he manages the game and Georgia’s offense and erasing his agency. Sometimes Heisman voters take a holistic view of a player’s career. Bennett’s Heisman case is a little bit of that, in addition to his surgical efficiency that flies under the radar of flashier players with gaudier stats. His is a candidacy that is built differently from others, but it is still solid and it is still worth applauding.
