Not long ago fans were debating if Jeremiyah Love would get an invite to New York City for the 2025 Heisman ceremony with many believing it probably wasn’t going to happen. Fast forward to the eve of the regular season concluding and suddenly Love is an astonishing 3rd across most sportsbooks in the United States in the latest Heisman odds.
Could he actually win the Heisman?
The odds and history against Love are easy to understand. Primarily, he’s a running back on a 2-loss team, that perhaps crucially, may not even make the playoffs. I mean, we Irish fans hope the playoffs are coming but it’s not guaranteed by any means. Also, this is the type of season where not playing in a conference championship game could be the tipping point away from Love (while kicking off at Stanford during the night time for half the country isn’t going to help either).
However, there are a few things shaping up that could help Love actually hoist the trophy in a couple weeks.
#1
This is a really weak Heisman year, one of the weakest fields in modern history. In terms of raw yardage totals, no one has put together a traditionally strong Heisman-level season. The 2 leading candidates in quarterback Fernando Mendoza and Julian Sayin could finish the regular season with fewer than 3,000 passing yards apiece, and neither is a dual-threat quarterback either.
Oh, interesting!
In short, the country has been looking for reasons to not vote for many of the top candidates all season long. It’s just been one of those years and I think Love has benefitted greatly from this with one week left in the regular season.
#2
Lack of huge stats in combination with a really unimpressive resume of wins for the favorites muddies the waters. Some might point to Love’s lack of stats against Miami in the opener but plenty of Heisman winners had a stinker the year they won the award. This year, Sayin threw for 126 yards against Texas and hasn’t faced another ranked team to date. Mendoza’s highlight wins of this season (Oregon, Penn State) saw him combine for a mediocre 433 passing yards, 2 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions.
Therefore, I don’t think a quarterback on a currently undefeated team is going to win the Heisman if their team loses over the next 2 weeks.
#3
While the Heisman typically goes to the best player, often the starting quarterback, on the top team in the land–it’s also sometimes largely a vibe based award reliant on major highlight plays to pursuade voters. As things stand today, Jeremiyah Love is winning this battle by a million miles and it’s fueling his late-season run in the sportsbooks.
This is where comparisons to Tim Brown, Notre Dame’s last Heisman winner, are important. People point to his stats back in 1987 in Lou Holtz’ restrictive offense but they were still pretty good overall. Brown was 18th nationally in receiving yards, 4th in yards per reception, and 4th nationally in punt return yards. Still, we look back at less than 1,000 yards and only 4 touchdowns from scrimmage and think it’s nuts but Brown won the vibes and highlights game–again to point out crucially–in a very down year for Heisman competition.
~
I think we’re down to 7 finalists, including Love in the mix. A bunch of thoughts on everyone:
Ty Simpson, Alabama
He seems completely written off right now after leading the odds not that long ago. Such is the fickle nature of Heisman betting action! If the Tide smoke Auburn and then win the SEC Championship with Simpson playing at a fairly high level in both games he’s going to have a shot to climb back in the race and maybe do enough to win it.
Gunner Stockton, Georgia
Man, he’s lurking! The Dawgs need Texas A&M to lose in order to make the SEC Championship Game and then the door opens up for Stockton to impress twice in a row against Georgia Tech and then in a re-match against Alabama (most likely). He has just enough of a dual-threat skillset that could endear him late in the game to voters seeking highlight plays to remember.
Marcel Reed, Texas A&M
I think Reed is the best darkhorse candidate right now. His numbers aren’t going to blow anyone away but if we set aside that concern in a down year he’s at least dynamic enough and can provide enough highlights to win the award. In fact, let’s say he combines for 570 passing yards, 95 rushing yards, and 7 overall touchdowns in wins over Texas and (potentially) Alabama–I think he’ll be tough to ignore for voters as the quarterback of an undefeated 13-0 SEC team.
Maybe the nation doesn’t want these guys?
Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt can’t make the SEC Championship Game and that makes Pavia the most Jeremiyah Love-esque of the nominees to me. His numbers are up there with anyone this year (he’ll be close to 4,000 total yards and 40 touchdowns after this weekend) and he has the argument of being the most important player to his team in the nation. With a big showing in Knoxville this season I think he’ll sew up an invite but winning it will probably be too difficult.
Julian Sayin, Ohio State
If you put your trust in Ohio State’s defense, this is probably Sayin’s award to lose. My question is, how unspectacular can he look with wins over Michigan and Indiana and still win the award? Is this just going to be a Troy Smith 2.0 type of situation for Ohio State? Will the Buckeyes defense and/or Jeremiah Smith steal enough attention away from voters? Troy Smith at least was a veteran and had some appeal nationally. Sayin has none of that in his favor.
Fernando Mendoza, Indiana
Despite being the favorite right now, that potential matchup with Ohio State does not look favorable. Mendoza has thrown for over 300 yards in a game just once this year! I think the odds are he largely struggles in the Big Ten Championship Game and then the door might open to other candidates. However, if they win but Mendoza plays pretty poorly, will the voters still go with the quarterback on the undefeated Big Ten Championship freaking Indiana Hoosiers?
Sure, it’ll take a few things to fall in place for Jeremiyah Love but this late in the game I don’t think it’s that outlandish that he’ll win the Heisman. That lack of final performance during championship weekend might work in his favor for a group of candidates who have shown they can’t be trusted to deliver big performances in big games. And if Love exits the Stanford game with the single-season Notre Dame rushing record to pair with 25+ total touchdowns the voting is going to be really, really close.
Great and timely post!
Because of the nature of this year, the parallel to Tim Brown’s award becomes striking. As I recall so well, Tim’s “campaign” was based on highlights, not numbers.
For J-Love, so far so good on the highlights. What has made them so powerful and effective is his unique skill set — hurdling, spinning, rolling over dudes, and of course every single time THAT BURST.
But to win the visuals need to be broadened. For Tim Brown, crucially his highlights showed his pass receiving but above all those punt returns. For J-Love, there needs to be other aspects of him as “The Complete Back” — so, highlights of receiving, pass pro, and especially lead blocking for QB power.
For reinforcement, read what none other than HCMF said yesterday:
“I really love it every time we run the QB power. Just watch every time we run a QB power, and Jeremiyah loves in there what he does to that linebacker, that safety, whoever’s filling. He tries to go punish them. That’s what you respect about him. He’s not a guy that just says, when I get the ball, I’m going to go make something happen. Every play he’s in there, he’s trying to do his job of physicality. He is a true, complete running back.”
And also:
“The thing I’m most pleased about, which people who watch him probably don’t care about, is the way he protects. I mean, the pride he takes in protecting the quarterback. There were times previously in his first or second year that we would say, hey, if it’s a passing situation, you might put somebody else in there. But there’s never a time where we say, take him off the field. He’s just that consistent in his play.
Does the late start vs. Stanford hurt or help ? Is there another game at that time that’s worth watching? Does a big 1st half against Stanford’s not so bad run defense help ? 132 yds will give Jeremiyah both the ND record and the most yds vs. Stanford for any back this season.
It has to hurt a tiny bit. I know I won’t be staying up to watch it live!
SMU at Cal 8 PM
UNLV at Nevada 9 PM
Fresno at SJSU 10:30 PM
Wyoming at Hawaii 10:30 PM
If people are awake, it’s a great window!
Finally, a game that starts around the time that the kids go to bed! I’ll probably DVR the start of the game and then be caught up to the live action by halftime
The time of the game won’t matter — what would matter is if he does anything highlight clip worthy or not
Sayin has a huge opportunity against Michigan. OSU hasn’t asked him to do much in any of their games against their 3 biggest opponents (OSU, Illinois, and Washington). But he has a legitimate chance to set the NCAA Completion Percentage record this year (he’s almost 2 full percentage points ahead of the record right now) while averaging nearly 9.5 yards per attempt.
It’s such a weird Heisman year though. With 1 game to go, Love currently has almost exactly half the carries and half the yards that Jeanty ended up with last year. A monster game against Stanford (194 rushing yards and 3 rushing TDs) would get him to 1,500 yards and 20 TDs for the year. I don’t think he’ll get enough touches to make that happen, but if he did, that might be enough to get him over the line!
I think it will come down to Mendoza and Love. Sayin is putting up solid numbers, but he is also throwing to the best receiving corps and against garbage competition. He did nothing against Texas (126 yards total), and his performances against Illinois and Washington were not great. He has run up big numbers and against the dregs of the Big 10. Big games against Indiana and Michigan would help him a lot. Not sure when the votes come in, but all seem to be consistent with an after conference championships. All the highlights of him I have seen (and I assume most voters are biased to highlights than watching full games) show receivers open by 20 yards catching balls that are well thrown, but not particularly difficult. His windows are enormous. GIven that Sayin is a RS freshman, I don’t see it.
As for Mendoza, he has similarly done well against lesser competition. He did throw the nice TD pass against Penn State, but I have not seen a lot of highlights of him. He could win only because people will want to give it to a QB on a top team. That said, I don’t think Indiana is all that good. Tested better than OSU, but still. If he plays poorly against OSU in the championship, or just mediocre, I think he won’t win either.
I think Pavia is the more likely choice. He has been having good games against tough defenses, other than Alabama where he was awful. He is certainly the MVP of college football this year, but maybe not the best player.
The Oklahoma game cost Ty Simpson his chance. The Alabama game cost Gunnar Stockton his chance.
In fairness, I assumed the Miami game cost Love his chance. Our running game has completely changed since that game. Have we run 5 RPOs since that game with Carr? He has played his way back into it. Also, all of our games feature Jeremiah Love running for 40+ yards. That is a better highlight than throwing a 30 yard pass to a wide open Jeremiah Smith or Cornel Tate. IF the USC game was the last game of the season, I think that 200+ yard game would have made the difference. IDeally, to have a chance, the voters need to wake up on Sunday to another 50+ yard TD run, and about 175 total.
We just learned via Chris Vannini that the voting window changed this year.
Traditionally, it would open this upcoming Monday for a week through conference title weekend.
Now, it’ll open next Saturday during conference championship weekend, only for 2 days, through that Monday.
Sayin has 4 INTs. They came against Grambling, Ohio(2) & Purdue. It makes sense that it’s been tougher for him vs the better teams. The numbers are still really good and he doesn’t turn the ball over. It also makes sense that Tx. is his worst stat game. (1st game, toughest Opp. )
Maybe Mich. or IU makes it tougher on him, we’ll see.
I’m thinking the time slot will get us viewing from the western half of the USA. If we play well esp the first half (which for this team is not a given) that could help a bit — Love’s HT chances as well.
No pity from this side of the ocean for those who are gonna sleep through it. Bon courage! For me, actually slightly better maybe, as I’ll awake for kickoff at 0430.
On Wake Up The Echos today, it comes out that J-Love is steadily practicing new moves. Hope he pulls one or two off. But I think my point earlier about highlighting his pass pro or lead blocking would be a good supplement to his media profile.
ND did include one of his monster qb power blocks on the YouTube short announcing him as a finalist for the Maxwell award:
https://youtu.be/9GmVmMoC8Ng