SI

The Most Interesting Heisman Trophy Race ... Ever?

Colorado two-way player Travis Hunter and Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty are the front-runners for an award that rarely appreciates their talents.

Pat Forde

Hunter’s two-way stardom is unheard of in modern football.
Hunter’s two-way stardom is unheard of in modern football. / Cris Tiller / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
In this story:

It is supremely fitting that a college football season of immense change would include a Heisman Trophy race that delightfully violates modern precedent. The most venerated individual award in sports had become formulaic, and now the 2024 season has broken the formula.

The heavy favorites to be the top two vote-getters for the stiff-armer statue are a two-way defensive back/wide receiver from a program that had its first winning season in eight years, and a running back from a Group of 5 program that has been at the FBS level for fewer than 30 years. Congratulations are in order to Travis Hunter of the Colorado Buffaloes and Ashton Jeanty of the Boise State Broncos. They’ve been so good that they counterprogrammed the Heisman.

This is what Hunter and Jeanty were up against:

Of the 24 Heismans awarded since 2000, 20 have gone to quarterbacks (the exceptions were three running backs and a wide receiver). And of those 24 winners, 22 were on teams that played for the national title, and/or came from historically accomplished programs that rank among the 20 winningest in FBS history. (The exceptions: Robert Griffin III of the Baylor Bears in ’11 and Lamar Jackson of the Louisville Cardinals in ’16.) Quarterbacks with big stats playing for highly ranked, blueblood programs became the numbing norm.

Now, for the first time since 2015, and just the third time in 30 years, a quarterback is unlikely to finish higher than third. That’s despite the presence of some of the usual suspects.

Oregon Ducks QB Dillon Gabriel checks every formula box as the leader of the undefeated, No. 1 team in the nation and owner of glittering statistics. Miami QB Cam Ward is second in the nation in passing yards and total offense for a 10–2 team. Gabriel and Ward are the other two finalists, but it would be a shock if either finishes ahead of Hunter and Jeanty. They were simply too compelling and too excellent to surpass, diverting the race into a new realm.

Hunter would be just the second defensive player to win the award in its history, after Michigan Wolverines defensive back Charles Woodson in 1997. But of course, Hunter is also a full-time offensive player. (Woodson dabbled in offense and was a dangerous kick returner, but his primary calling card was covering receivers and tackling runners.) If he gets the award, as I expect, Hunter will be the most versatile Heisman winner since Paul Hornung in … 1956.

He is truly elite at two different things. Hunter is considered one of the top two cornerback prospects in the 2025 NFL draft, along with Michigan’s Will Johnson. He also is second in the nation in touchdown catches (14) and in the top six in receptions (92) and receiving yards (1,152). He has said he wants to play both ways as a pro, too, and whatever franchise drafts him would be foolish not to let him try.

Hunter has simply shattered the ceiling of what a player can do in major college football. His workload has been Herculean: 1,360 scrimmage plays, an average of 113.3 snaps per game, with full-out sprinting on the majority of those plays. Hunter has also thrown his body into harm’s way a lot for a perimeter player—he’s a physical tackler on defense and is willing to absorb hits in pursuit of catches on offense.

Two-platoon football took over in the early 1960s, so it has been 60 years since hardly anyone playing past high school has tried to do what Hunter has done. The product of Suwanee, Ga., has proved that it’s possible, undoubtedly inspiring a generation of aspiring two-way players. But he offers some words of caution for aspiring imitators.

“I definitely think I opened some doors, but it is going to be hard to squeeze inside the door because I’m the only person that’s ever done it,” Hunter says. “I’m just, I have a different type of mindset where I don’t go out, I don’t drink, I don’t do none of the extra stuff. I go home, chill with my fiancée, play the video games, doing stuff like that to keep me out of trouble and just keep my head down and keep my head in the right space.”

Jeanty has had a special season in a non-power conference and led Boise State to the CFP.
Jeanty has had a special season in a non-power conference and led Boise State to the CFP. / Troy Babbitt-Imagn Images

As for Jeanty, he’s trying to become the first Heisman winner from a non-power conference since Ty Detmer of the BYU Cougars in 1990. The gravitational pull of the sport toward massive conferences with massive revenue advantages created a narrative that those outside the elite programs and leagues simply cannot compete. Yet here is 12–1 Boise State, awarded a No. 3 seed for the College Football Playoff, powered by Jeanty.

He is putting up numbers that have conjured memories of Barry Sanders’s epic 1988 Heisman season—perhaps the finest individual season a running back ever had. At this point, Jeanty’s 344 carries exactly equals Sanders’s total that year. Sanders was more productive in those 344 carries: 2,628 rushing yards to Jeanty’s 2,497; 37 rushing touchdowns to Jeanty’s 29. But Jeanty has at least one more game to go, and could eclipse Sanders’s single-season FBS record. (He’s currently fourth, and moving up to second will require only 91 rushing yards.)

The most remarkable part of Jeanty’s season is that he chose to stay at Boise State to do what he’s done. He could have commanded huge money in the transfer portal but opted to stay where he had been recruited out of high school (and he hardly took a vow of poverty, with Boise State’s NIL stepping up as best it could). The Boise State program has risen out of obscurity in the 21st century to challenge the power elite, producing a number of great players along the way, but no Bronco in that time has had a season quite like this.

He will translate to the next level, too. Even as the NFL is devaluing running backs, Jeanty is seen as a first-round pick who could go as high as the top 10. Comparisons have been made to Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson, which sets the bar rather high.

In a season marked by an expanded playoff, conference realignment and many surprise outcomes on the field, the best players have added their own plot twist. The blast of fresh air delivered by Hunter and Jeanty to the usual stuffy Heisman race should be applauded and appreciated. We might not see anything like it again.

More College Football on Sports Illustrated

feed

Published |Modified
Pat Forde
PAT FORDE

Pat Forde is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated who covers college football and college basketball as well as the Olympics and horse racing. He cohosts the College Football Enquirer podcast and is a football analyst on the Big Ten Network. He previously worked for Yahoo Sports, ESPN and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. Forde has won 28 Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest awards, has been published three times in the Best American Sports Writing book series, and was nominated for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. A past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and member of the Football Writers Association of America, he lives in Louisville with his wife. They have three children, all of whom were collegiate swimmers.

Home/College Football