SportsCrack Blog

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Heisman Trophy Watch Week 4



We are now 4 weeks into the college football season so it's time to take a look at the early Heisman Trophy contenders aka September Heismans.  As we have seen in the past it's not always good to be a September Heisman.  Examples include Geno Smith or even Sam Darnold last season.  Usually the beginning of the season represents padding your stats against inferior opponents before embarking on conference games.  This all changes this week as most conference games are in effect.

1) Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama - 2018 has quickly turned into Tua's Heisman to lose.  When you are the quarterback of the #1 team you already have an advantage.  But when you have the talent, numbers, and storybook young career of Tua on full display all year in front of national eyes it makes it a lot more difficult for anyone else to catch up.  So far Tua has been damn near flawless and for the first time in a long time the Bama offense is really fun to watch.

2) Dwayne Haskins, Ohio State - After watching Haskins complete over 75% of his passes with a 16 TD-to-1 INT ratio so far this season it makes me wonder if Urban Meyer screwed up last season not starting him over JT Barrett.  This week he gets to prove to the nation he's a worthy contender with a primetime game at Penn State.

3) Will Grier, West Virginia - It seems like Grier has been playing college football as long as it took Tommy Boy to graduate.  The Florida transfer is completing 75% of his passes with a 14 TD-to-3 INT ratio in 3 games.  This week he faces top 25 Texas Tech who feature their own gunslinger in true freshman Alan Bowman.



4) Benny Snell Jr, Kentucky - The only non QB in the top 5 list is one of the most underrated players in the game.  Snell has helped lead the surging Wildcats to a 4-0 start with excellent performances vs Florida (175 yards) and Mississippi State (165 yards) in upset specials.  If Snell can help lead Kentucky to a win this week vs South Carolina he's gonna be on everybody's ballot.

5) Kyler Murray, Oklahoma - While Oklahoma struggled to win vs Army in OT last week it wasn't a Murray issue.  Murray was great completing 11-of-15 passes for 3 TDs.  For the season he's accounted for 14 TDs and the Sooners haven't skipped a beat offensively despite losing Heisman winner Baker Mayfield to the NFL.



Just missed the cut - Justin Herbert, Oregon; Jonathan Taylor, Wisconsin; Darrell Henderson, Memphis