Jameis Winston took the Heisman Trophy to uncharted territory a year ago, becoming the youngest player to win the award and the first freshman recipient to claim it and a national title in the same season.
The Florida State quarterback has once again done something no winner has ever done before, and it should all but deny him a second trophy.
His suspension for last weekend's 23-17 overtime victory over No. 22 Clemson for yelling an obscenity wasn't the first time a defending winner had been punished-- last season Texas A&M's sat Johnny Manziel for the first half of the opening game of his trophy defense against Rice amid the autograph fiasco -- or an eventual recipient missed a game -- Charlie White in 1979 and Charlie Ward in '93 -- but it was the only scenario in which a Heisman winner was banned an entire game.
With Archie Griffin's standing as the only two-time winner presumably safe, we have to wonder how Winston's Heisman defense is going to end.
The Seminoles have a schedule that outside of an Oct. 18 date with No. 8 Notre Dame and the Nov. 20 regular-season finale vs. Florida, isn't high on strength. It's well within reason to imagine Florida State earning a place in the first College Football Playoff, making it hard to deny Winston's impact.
But with mortality a hot topic not only in al of sports after two seasons of antics from Manziel, Winston and now the NFL's domestic violence issues, we voters are going to have to think about more than stats and on-field production when selecting future icons.
Last season, Manziel threw for more yard and TDs than when he won in 2012, but in carrying a stigma for his off-field issues, he wound up fifth, tying Tim Tebow in '09 for the worst finish of any former winner who made the ceremony.
It would be stunning to imagine Winston not, at the very least, getting an invite. Finalists are decided on the natural break in voting, but in that aforementioned fifth place finish, Tebow was 425 points behind fourth-place Ndamukong Suh. In 2001, Joey Harrington was 274 behind third-place Ken Dorsey and didn't make it to New York, and in '99 sixth-place Peter Warrick was left out at just 44 points behind Chad Pennington.
The Heisman Trophy presentation is, at its core, a TV show, and in the realm of creating a can't-miss product, you have to have the defending winner on hand.
Winston is all but out of this race after just one ACC game, leaving potentially the biggest intrigue as to whether he'll wind up challenging Manziel and Tebow for that dubious place in Heisman history.
Before we dive into the players who are rising and falling in this race, here's a look at your real-time Heisman standings:
Two weeks ago this space featured a dissection of whether Cooper -- or any wide receiver, for that matter -- could win in this era. The forecast remains the same for the Crimson Tide star, who continues to lead FBS in receiving yards (655), receptions (10.8) and yards per game (163.8), and now another factor is creeping in: the QB getting credit. It was Blake Sims who was named Walter Camp Offensive Player of the Week after Week 4, but it's Cooper who is the most potent and most reliable part of this Alabama offense. The buzz around him should only grow as the Tide get into the meat of their SEC West schedule.
Prescott erased any doubts about whether he was ready to take center stage, powering the Bulldogs to a win at LSU, the kind of victories that had only previously been a pipe dream in the Dan Mullen era. Of course, the challenge now is building off his newly found contender status, which he can take to another level with No. 6 Texas A&M and No. 5 Auburn following this week's bye. Next to Mariota, Prescott, who is averaging 335 yards of offense per game, may be the best hope to become the next dual-threat winner. He's on pace for 4,355 yards if the Bulldogs make the SEC title game; 4,025 if they don't. That's not far off from the average of the runners/throwers to hoist the trophy.
He's listed as questionable for Saturday's game against No. 15 Arizona State after leaving the Texas game on Sept. 13 with a hyperextended elbow. If he doesn't play, Hundley's chances are done, but with Todd Graham already saying Sun Devils QB Taylor Kelly is out with a foot injury, this is a key game for Hundley. The Bruins still have No. 2 Oregon, No. 18 USC and No. 16 Stanford awaiting them and after some lackluster performances, the QB has to start rebuilding his campaign and a primetime affair against a Top-25 squad is the perfect springboard.
His dual-threat capabilities were supposed to add a new dimension to the Sooners offense, and while they've remained explosive, scoring 44.8 points per game (12th), that hasn't been the case. Knight has run a total of 14 times in four games and is coming off his worst game of the season, throwing for 205 yards and a pick vs. West Virginia, though he did catch a 4-yard score on a trick play. But with freshman RB Samaje Perine now having equal odds as Knight (per Bovada) at 25/1, one week after the passer was at 12/2, it's clear the love for the Oklahoma passer is fading. While his next two opponents aren't slouches -- TCU on Oct. 4 and Texas a week later -- he doesn't see a ranked team again until No. 25 Kansas State on Oct. 18, making it difficult to make a statement after his stock slipped.
One year after Boston College's Andre Williams ran his way through the ACC and to New York in going for over 2,000 yards, Conner could follow suit. But here's the deal: Conner is on pace for 2,097 yards, but doesn't have a schedule that is built to get him to the ceremony. Williams' campaign included 149 yards against eventual national champion Florida State, while Conner and the Panthers don't face a currently ranked team this season. Using the NCAA's strength of schedule method, Pitt ranks 67th, as its future games include only two teams with more than two wins, Duke and Georgia Tech at 4-0 each. Keeping the Panthers in the Coastal Division hunt will help, but keep in mind that in 2007, UCF's Kevin Smith ran for over 2,500 yards and didn't earn an invite. Granted, he was playing in Conference USA and Pitt is at a Power-5 school, but yards alone won't be enough to fuel Conner's campaign.
Like Prescott, Waters had an opportunity to go from a fringe contender to something much more last week. But his two interceptions against Auburn -- the first of which was more on Tyler Lockett than him, but that's how it goes for a QB -- proved costly in the Wildcats' loss. He didn't handle pressure well, taking three sacks and still has to face four of the Big 12's top five defenses in the next six games, including TCU (second in FBS) and Baylor (third). Staying in this race appears daunting.
