The four finalists for the Heisman Trophy were announced on Monday evening, and the list didn’t really come as a surprise.
LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels, Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and Oregon quarterback Bo Nix were the obvious three, and all received invites to the ceremony in New York next weekend.
Some thought Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe may get an invite after leading the Crimson Tide to an upset over Georgia in Saturday’s SEC championship, but instead, the fourth spot went to star Ohio State receiver and top-five 2024 NFL draft prospect Marvin Harrison Jr.
Daniels is heavily expected to receive the award. He’s the clear favorite, both in terms of betting and public perception, and it would be decently surprising to see things go in a different direction.
But in the spirit of both chaos and fairness, here’s the best argument each of the four has for winning college football’s most prestigious award.
Jayden Daniels
We’ll start with the favorite because his case is easily the cleanest and most clear-cut. Statistically, Daniels has been the most impressive player in the country this season. He ranks third nationally in passing yards with 3,812, trailing only the two other quarterbacks who will join him in New York.
What the other two don’t have, however, is the rushing production. Daniels rushed for more than 1,100 yards in 2023. He has as many passing touchdowns as Nix (40) and more than Penix, and that’s without considering the 10 rushing touchdowns that put him at 50 total for the season.
It’s not just flash, either. Down to down, he’s been the nation’s best quarterback. He paces the nation in quarterback rating (208) by a mile, and when you look at yards-per-attempt, you see that there’s no dink-and-dunk to LSU’s offense.
Daniels averages 11.7 yards per attempt while Nix (9.5) and Penix (9.1) trail by quite a bit.
Statistically, it’s a no-brainer, but Daniels also passes the eye test. He has electric speed at the quarterback position, and without him, it’s hard to imagine this LSU team even approaching the nine-win mark.
If this award goes to the nation’s most valuable player, there’s no doubt that player is Daniels.
Bo Nix
If Oregon had beaten Washington in the Pac-12 championship, Nix likely would have remained the Heisman favorite as he was the last few weeks of the regular season. However, the Ducks’ loss knocked the team out of the College Football Playoff, and it significantly decreased Nix’s chances of winning the Heisman.
If the previous section didn’t make it clear, there aren’t many statistical areas you could point to where Daniels doesn’t have the edge among quarterbacks, but there is one: completion percentage.
Daniels has been very efficient this year, completing almost 73% of his passes. But Nix has been on another level.
His 77.2% mark currently sits just shy of Mac Jones’ 2020 FBS record of 77.4%, and with Nix not opting out of the Fiesta Bowl against Liberty, he’ll have the chance to break that record.
Completion percentage is far from the most telling stat. It can sometimes be a negative indicator that a quarterback isn’t taking enough chances. That’s not the case with Nix, who averages nearly 10 yards per attempt.
His 40-to-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio surpasses even Daniels’, and you could definitely make the case that Nix has been the best pure passer in college football this season.
While he doesn’t have production on the ground that rivals Daniels’, he has been far from a non-factor there with 228 yards and six touchdowns, though he didn’t run the ball as much as he did in 2022.
The fact that Nix had an extra game makes his rate stats even weaker than Daniels, but it also makes his efficiency numbers all the more impressive, and if that’s your thing, a vote for Nix is certainly understandable.
Michael Penix Jr.
Penix’s case is a bit of a curious one. He was the favorite to win the award for much of the season, and his team is 13-0, ranks second in the country and is heading to the CFP. He never had a real meltdown game, and yet, the smoke around his candidacy has waned quite a bit down the stretch this season.
After a red-hot start, the Huskies’ offense cooled off significantly down the stretch. Penix was never bad, though a two-interception game in an ugly 15-7 win over Arizona State certainly wasn’t pretty.
He’s seen a resurgence with the win over Oregon, however, and he certainly still has a solid case. While he doesn’t have Nix or Daniels’ touchdown numbers, he does lead the nation with 4,218 passing yards and has helmed the most productive passing offense in the country over the last two seasons.
The interception number is a concern at nine, especially with how efficient Nix and Daniels have been. But it has never cost the Huskies a win, and while the Heisman isn’t a team award, LSU’s three losses have been held against Daniels, and two losses to Washington could easily be held against Nix.
Meanwhile, Penix is the only one of the four finalists that is competing in the CFP, and that certainly counts for something.
Marvin Harrison Jr.
We’ve reached the wild card of the group.
Harrison’s selection as a Heisman finalist came as a bit of a surprise, especially given the fact that it has historically been a quarterback award that doesn’t give much love to receivers.
However, we’re just a few years removed from a wideout winning the Heisman in DeVonta Smith, and while it would be quite a surprise, we could see another this season.
Harrison is one of the best college receivers we’ve seen in a while, and he could be a top-three draft pick after a prolific season in which he almost entirely matched last year’s production with 1,211 yards and 14 touchdowns.
With new Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord having his share of struggles, the Buckeyes really leaned on Harrison offensively in a way teams rarely do with receivers, but even then, the production doesn’t really look like it’s at a Heisman level.
For context, when Smith won the Heisman in 2020, he had 1,856 yards and 23 touchdowns. While Harrison has had a fantastic season, he hasn’t come close to that level of production.
And when Smith won, he did so with the benefit of a relatively weak group of quarterback candidates. That’s not going to be the case for Harrison this time around.
But if you aren’t impressed with any of the three quarterbacks invited, Harrison was pretty inarguably the top non-quarterback in the country this season.
How I would vote
I’m not a Heisman voter. If I did have a ballot, this is what it would look like.
- Jayden Daniels
- Bo Nix
- Michael Penix Jr.
- Marvin Harrison Jr.
I think Nix would have had a pretty good argument over Daniels if Oregon won on Friday night, but without a playoff berth, it’s hard to argue he should win it while trailing Daniels in most stats. While Penix has led the most successful team, he hasn’t had the combination of production and efficiency Daniels or Nix has.
And while Harrison is a phenomenal player with a long career on Sundays ahead of him, he hasn’t had the kind of anomaly season needed to overcome the award’s bias against non-quarterbacks.
Barring a significant surprise, Daniels will become the second LSU quarterback to win the award since 2019.
