Heisman Forecast: New front-runner Prescott could have historic path to trophy
The schedule is a springboard for a Heisman Trophy campaign and Dak Prescott is taking advantage of one that could be unprecedented should he end up taking home the statue.
Mississippi State's redshirt junior quarterback has already directed takedowns of No. 8 LSU and sixth-ranked Texas A&M. Saturday, he could earn a third top 10 victory as the Bulldogs host No. 2 Auburn. No. 3 Ole Miss and seventh-ranked Alabama are still on the schedule — and while a lot could change before those November games — and there's the potential Prescott and Co. could play in the SEC Championship Game. That would mean he winds up facing five (or even six) opponents ranked 10th or higher.
Since the Downtown Athletic Club began honoring players east of the Mississippi in 1935 — a pool that was opened up to the entire country a year later — no winner has ever played five top 10 teams in a single season.
Notre Dame's Angelo Bertelli would have faced five in 1943, but he only ended up playing in two such games as he was called into service with the Marine Corps following an Oct. 30 win over No. 3 Navy. That leaves Auburn's Pat Sullivan (1971) and Texas' Ricky Williams (1998) with the most top 10 opponents among trophy recipients with four.
It's playing in the SEC West that put the Bulldogs at the epicenter of college football — as they've gone from unranked heading into Week 4 to playing a game that could see its winner crowned No. 1 come Sunday — and it's that division that turned Prescott from a dark horse into a legitimate Heisman contender.
Of course, it could be Prescott's downfall too.
While he may be this year's Cam Newton — 2010's out-of-nowhere winner — he could be Collin Klein, who rose to top-tier candidate status in 2012, only to fall out of favor after a loss and finish a distant third. Lose to the Tigers on Saturday and the buzz will dwindle; fall Nov. 15 to the Crimson Tide or the 29th against Ole Miss and even getting to the ceremony in New York may be difficult.
It's a daunting schedule, but there may not be a more advantageous path to the Heisman, or one that should Prescott and the Bulldogs keep rolling, render what anyone else does moot.
Before we take a look at the players set to rise and fall in Week 7, here's how the contenders currently stack up.
He diversified his resume, adding a 50-yard pass — his first since high school — out of the Wild Dawg formation, and hurdled another defender a week ago. From a career standpoint, he's now the fourth player in Georgia history with 3,000 rushing yards and is nine touchdowns short of Herschel Walker's program record of 52. He's third in the nation with 154.6 yards per game despite one game in which he had just six carries (Sept. 20 vs. Troy) and trails Nebraska's Ameer Abdullah by 105 yards for the overall rushing lead. In a power ranking of the country's top running backs, Gurley has a strong case to be No. 1, but his Heisman campaign has taken a bit of a hit considering the two best teams the Bulldogs have played, Clemson and South Carolina, are both unranked. He'll get a chance to make a statement on Saturday with a trip to No. 23 Missouri. The Tigers aren't stellar against the rush, ranking 57th in FBS (144.6) and they've already allowed 132 yards and a score to Indiana's Tevin Coleman and 104 yards and a score against the Gamecocks' Mike Davis.
As previously discussed here, the offseason citation for marijuana possession cast him in a bad light in voters' eyes. But the other side of that, is that it happened before the season and as other contender's hopes take a hit, Marshall has the stage to write a different narrative in navigating a schedule with seven ranked teams. He's shown improvement week after week in the passing game and heads into an SEC West showdown with Prescott and Mississippi State coming off his best performance of the year with 207 yards and two TDs passing and 119 yards and two more rushing scores in a romp of LSU. Should he upstage Prescott, Marshall could move into the upper echelon on a lot of watch lists. Here's something to keep in mind for Marshall and Co.: the Bulldogs rank second in the nation in red-zone defense, holding opponents to 53.8 percent, while Auburn is No. 1 in red-zone offense, scoring in 21 of its 21 tries.
Taysom Hill's broken leg ended the QB's season and BYU's playoff hopes, as they stumbled at home against Utah State. But at the same time, that injury provided a boost to Carden, who now becomes the most compelling non-Power-5 player in this race. Carden has thrown for 400-plus yards in each of the past three games, tossing 11 touchdowns to one interception in that span. He could be in for another big day against a South Florida D that has been mediocre in pass efficiency D at 135.6 (86th) and has given up 29 points per game (86th). While Carden's Pirates have a loss — coming against then-No. 21 South Carolina — he threw for 321 in that game and has a Top 25 win (over No. 17 Virginia Tech), along with another major-conference victory in beating North Carolina. He remains an extreme long shot, but getting to New York isn't unprecedented for a player from outside the sport's power structure whose team has suffered a loss, especially of late. Northern Illinois' Jordan Lynch did it last year and so did Boise State's Kellen Moore in 2010.
No preseason favorite has won the trophy since USC's Matt Leinart in 2004 and now this summer's golden boy, Mariota, has gone from the clear front-runner to needing to play catchup. The good news for him, and the Ducks' playoff hopes, is that not all is lost, though the schedule has been hurt by UCLA and Stanford's losses last weekend. But there is zero room for error now and Mariota is going to have to be sensational every week to make up for suffering a home loss to an unranked opponent. While perfection is no longer an option, voters haven't made that a must, with four of the past seven winners having at least a loss, including Robert Griffin III and Tim Tebow suffering three each before the voting. Mariota is the nation's leader in pass efficiency at 202.4, which puts him in line to break Russell Wilson's FBS record of 191.7.
Either Hundley or Mariota's chances are over after they meet in Pasadena. Hundley improved over the last two games with a 77.2 completion rate and six touchdown passes against Arizona State and Utah, but he was sacked a whopping 10 times in the loss to the Utes (the most of any Division I player in two years), including on three consecutive plays in the fourth. The Bruins' offensive line has been bad — the Ducks' banged-up unit has been, at least statistically, just a shade better — and it could get worse. UCLA is 123rd in sacks allowed with 4.6 per game, while Oregon is 19th in the nation, dropping QBs an average of 3.2 times.
One week after debating whether or not he could play his way into a spot in New York in a down Big Ten, he gets shut down by Michigan State, totaling 45 yards on 24 carries. That was his second bad game this season, as Abdullah had 54 yards on 17 tries against McNeese State. He'll face two more highly-ranked rush defenses in Wisconsin (22nd) and Iowa (seventh) but the Spartans presented Abdullah with an opportunity he missed. The senior remains the FBS rushing leader with 878 yards and is still on pace for 1,756 yards, which would break Lawrence Phillips' program record of 1,722 from 1994.
