Darian Mensah leads the race, 4 points clear of Trinidad Chambliss for the next spot. 6 players currently sit at 10%+ finalist odds -- the rest of the field is chasing.
Receipt: 401 yds passing, 5 TD at Stanford (W 45–6)
Darian Mensah led the ACC in passing and won a surprise title at Duke. Now he's Miami's big-money answer at quarterback -- a proven passer dropped onto a roster that was a game from the championship.
The full scout
His 2025 at Duke was a breakout in full: an ACC-best 3,973 passing yards, 34 touchdowns against only six interceptions, a 66.8 completion percentage, second-team All-ACC, ACC Newcomer of the Year and a Davey O'Brien semifinal nod -- and a surprise conference title. Miami made him the headline of its offseason, the top-dollar portal swing meant to replace its departed quarterback. The fit is the story: a program fresh off a Playoff near-miss adds a passer who already does the hardest thing well -- protect the ball while pushing the offense. The forward stakes are a championship window. Miami doesn't need Mensah to be a revelation; it needs him to be exactly what he was at Duke, on a bigger stage. Do that, and the Hurricanes are a Playoff team and he's a 2027 draft riser.
On tape Mensah is a pure pocket passer who wins on efficiency and ball security, and the data is glowing. Our play-by-play grades his EPA per dropback in the 84th percentile and his passing success rate in the 95th, and the interception avoidance is elite -- an 85th-percentile (very low) pick rate that matches his real 34-to-6 ratio. He's accurate (91st-percentile completion) and willing to push it (73rd-percentile explosive-pass rate at a healthy depth of target), the rare combination of careful and aggressive. There's no exotic running element here; the value is in the operation -- decisive, accurate, turnover-averse. He's the kind of quarterback who doesn't beat himself, and on a roster this talented, that's exactly the profile a Playoff run wants.
Playing for No. 4 Ole Miss, 3–0 — the stage voters watch
Turnovers are the mark against him
Receipt: 336 yds passing, 3 TD, 1 rushing TD vs Louisville (W 41–38)
Eighteen months ago Trinidad Chambliss won a Division II national title. Last fall he led Ole Miss to the Playoff quarterfinals and finished eighth in the Heisman. This fall he plays only because a court said he could.
The full scout
Chambliss is the most improbable star in the sport. He won a national championship at Division II Ferris State, entered the portal in April 2025, and arrived at Ole Miss as a backup after spring ball had already ended. Then the starter got hurt at Kentucky, Chambliss stepped in, and a fifth-year unknown took the Rebels to the College Football Playoff quarterfinals and into the Heisman conversation, finishing eighth.
That was supposed to be the end -- fifth year, eligibility spent. Chambliss petitioned the NCAA for a sixth on medical grounds, was denied, sued, and won a preliminary injunction; the state's Supreme Court turned away the NCAA's appeal. So he's back, on borrowed-and-litigated time -- and for a new boss, after Lane Kiffin left for LSU and Ole Miss handed the program to Pete Golding.
The forward stakes are pure proof. A new staff, a target on his back, and one season to answer the only question a story this strange invites: was it real? If the Division II kid does it twice, in the SEC, the fairy tale becomes a resume.
On tape Chambliss plays quarterback like a man who learned it on improvisation -- a dual-threat who extends plays and hunts the explosive -- and the numbers under the fairy tale are real: a 94th-percentile average depth of target (he pushes it downfield as much as anyone in the country), 90th-percentile efficiency, a near-nonexistent interception rate, plus the legs for 80th-percentile rushing success. He chases big plays and rarely gives it back, a rare combination. His game is feel and creativity more than textbook timing; he's at his best when the play breaks. That's also the open question: how a more disciplined SEC defense -- and a brand-new Ole Miss staff under Pete Golding -- asks him to operate within structure rather than around it. 2026 is a fit test as much as a talent one: marry the off-script magic to a real system and the fairy tale gets a sequel.
The team around him carries more of this than his own line
Receipt: 234 yds passing, 5 TD vs Western Kentucky (W 70–20)
Nobody calls Gunner Stockton flashy. He just went 12-2, won the SEC, beat Alabama 28-7, and finished seventh in the Heisman voting -- as a first-year starter. He's back to do the one thing that got away: finish.
The full scout
In his first year as the starter he threw for 2,894 yards with 24 touchdowns and only five interceptions, ran for 462 more and ten scores, and carried Georgia to a second straight SEC title and the No. 3 Playoff seed. Todd McShay's read was that he "shows up in clutch moments" and has "carried that team while the defense lagged behind" -- high praise for a quarterback most national lists slot as a game-manager. The season ended one round too early, a 39-34 CFP quarterfinal loss to Ole Miss. So the in-state veteran came back for what should be his final college year, now a fringe-Heisman and preseason-award name. The forward stakes are the wall itself: Georgia has the program, the recruiting, and the standard, but Stockton's job is to push it past the quarterfinal it just lost. His ten rushing touchdowns are the weapon defenses underrate -- and 2026 is his bid to turn "does everything right" into a national championship.
On tape Stockton is the operator, not the highlight -- and the numbers say the operating is excellent. He posted a 24-to-5 touchdown-to-interception ratio in 2025, the ball-security of a quarterback who knows where to go with it; McShay praised the way he runs the offense and "does everything right" even if "nothing is super flashy." Where he's quietly elite is on the ground near the end zone: ten rushing touchdowns, and our play-by-play grades his rushing-touchdown rate in the 99th percentile -- when Georgia gets close, he's a runner defenses have to account for (he scored five total touchdowns, one with his legs, in the win over Ole Miss). The honest frame is the ceiling debate: CBS and others keep him out of the elite QB tier and light on draft buzz, the "game-manager" label he's spent a year outrunning. He's a tough, low-mistake, dual-threat winner -- the kind of quarterback who doesn't lose you games and, at the goal line, wins them.
The platform is carrying the case more than the numbers are
Receipt: 231 yds passing, 4 TD vs North Texas (W 52–16)
Josh Hoover has thrown for more than 9,500 yards. Now he's taking over the Indiana offense that just produced a Heisman winner. A proven arm, a proven system -- and one question: can he cut the giveaways?
The full scout
At TCU he was a yardage machine -- 3,472 yards, 29 touchdowns and a 65.9 completion percentage in 2025, on top of a single-season program record in 2024 and more than 9,500 career passing yards. Now he inherits one of the best landing spots in the sport: Indiana, where Curt Cignetti's CFP-tested offense just turned Fernando Mendoza into a Heisman winner. The pairing is the pitch -- a high-volume veteran arm dropped into a system proven to maximize quarterbacks. The forward stakes are a sleeper Heisman run and a Playoff push, gated by the one flaw that has followed him: he's turnover-prone, with 13 interceptions in 2025. If Cignetti's structure tightens his decisions the way it sharpened Mendoza's, Hoover has the arm and the volume to be one of the most productive quarterbacks in the country. The talent was never the question; the giveaways are.
On tape Hoover is a high-volume pocket passer who pushes the ball and lives with the consequences. Our play-by-play likes the production -- a 92nd-percentile touchdown rate, an 88th-percentile EPA per dropback, a 76th-percentile explosive-pass rate at a real depth of target (13.8 yards) -- the profile of an aggressive thrower who hunts chunk plays. The accuracy is solid (73rd-percentile completion), but the honest mark is the one that's followed him: a 27th-percentile interception avoidance, i.e. a fairly high pick rate, the cost of all that ambition. He's a true gunslinger -- the kind of arm that piles up yards and touchdowns and, on the wrong night, hands a game away. In a system built to discipline that exact profile, the upside is a star.
The quarterback of a national contender, 3–0 Notre Dame
Production is solid, not the reason he's here
Receipt: 253 yds passing, 4 TD vs Rice (W 52–0)
Notre Dame went 0-2, ripped off ten straight, and still got left out of the Playoff. The redshirt-freshman QB who drove that run, CJ Carr, is now the Heisman favorite -- and Year 2 opens at the team that bounced him.
The full scout
That team is Miami, whose season-opening win over the Irish last fall became the exact tiebreaker the committee used to keep a 10-2 Notre Dame home. The schedule-makers put the rematch first. You couldn't script it crueler.
Here's what the box score buries: no returning quarterback in the country was blitzed more than Carr -- 36.7% of his dropbacks -- because defenses saw a first-year starter and came hunting. It backfired. When teams didn't blitz, nobody in America averaged more per dropback (9.4). He finished fifth nationally in efficiency and a Manning Award finalist as a freshman.
The bloodline is the subplot you'll hear all year: Carr was raised in Saline, Michigan -- grandson of Lloyd Carr, the man who won Michigan's last title in 1997 -- and he chose Notre Dame over the Wolverines. Now he carries the title hopes of the program Ann Arbor loves to hate.
The forward question isn't the arm; it's the margin. The independent path leaves almost none -- win at Miami and BYU and an 87%-likely Playoff bid is his; slip once and the snub debate reopens. Carr says his Year 2 leap is leadership and footwork, not numbers. The Irish haven't won it all since 1988. If the sophomore who shrugged off the blitz becomes the closer this program's been missing, the story stops being "good Notre Dame QB" and becomes "the one who ended the drought."
On tape Carr plays the position like a chess clock -- pre-snap he's already three moves ahead, and the ball is gone the instant his back foot lands. The surprise is where it's going: he's not a checkdown surgeon, he's a downfield one. His average throw traveled nearly fifteen yards in the air -- 94th-percentile depth -- and he still finished 92nd percentile in success rate and 96th in explosive passes. He takes shots, and he connects. What he doesn't do is run; thirty-three yards all season says he'd rather solve the problem than flee it. The edge is the flip side of the gift: when the first read's gone and the pocket caves, the anticipation that makes him lethal on schedule has less to lean on -- exactly the off-platform footwork he chased all offseason. In a 2026 where Notre Dame needs him to carry a title run, the question was never the deep ball; it's the third-and-8 when the script's gone.
Receipt: 305 yds passing, 4 TD vs Texas State (W 59–7)
For three years, Arch Manning was the most famous backup in football -- the name, the bloodline, the hype with no tape. Then he finally played, struggled, and figured it out. Now he's the Heisman favorite, and the patience is over.
The full scout
The grandson of Archie, nephew of Peyton and Eli, was the most-hyped recruit of his generation before he'd thrown a college pass -- and he sat, behind Quinn Ewers, while the legend grew on zero evidence. His 2025 debut as the starter was supposed to settle it; for five games it only complicated it. He averaged an interception a game, the offense sputtered, and the takes turned. Then the season flipped: over the final eight games he turned the ball over twice, and across his last six he was responsible for 20 touchdowns through the air, on the ground, and even on a catch.
That late surge is why he enters 2026 as a betting co-favorite -- by some books the favorite -- and why one analyst flatly said there's 'a 0% chance' he isn't in New York for the ceremony. The bar isn't a good season; it's a coronation. A Manning has never won a Heisman; Texas has produced only two. He'd close both gaps at once.
The forward question isn't talent -- the arm was never in doubt. It's whether the second half of 2025 was the real Arch and the first half was the learning curve, or the other way around. In an SEC where Texas is built to win it all, a full season at his ceiling makes him the story of the sport. Anything less reopens the only debate that's ever followed him: was the hype ever real?
On tape Manning is a big-bodied gunslinger who plays the position downhill -- a live arm that pushes it deep (88th-percentile average depth) and the juice to run for eight scores. But the 2025 tape is the rawness as much as the upside: he graded bottom-fifth in completion and ninth percentile in success rate, throwing his share of picks even as the flashes -- the explosive shots, a top-quarter touchdown rate -- hinted at the ceiling. The lightbulb came late: an interception a game through five weeks, then two turnovers across the final eight. That arc is the whole scouting report -- the tools are loud and the consistency is the project. On schedule, Sarkisian's pro-style attack has a weapon with no ceiling; when he forces it, the efficiency cratered. 2026 is about turning the back-half flashes into the baseline -- making the rare reps the every-down ones.
OSOhio State · QB · ★ Rare combo · ▼ down from #10
7%
Finalist odds
Program BenchmarkReturning FinalistTop-10 RecruitDark Horse
Win2%Top-56 odds78%Market+3200
Why he's No. 11~ our read
Playing for No. 7 Ohio State, 2–1 — the stage voters watch
The platform is carrying the case more than the numbers are
Receipt: 320 yds passing, 3 TD, 1 rushing TD vs Ball State (W 56–3)
Julian Sayin led the entire country in accuracy, made the Heisman finalist cut as the only underclassman -- and still went home empty, beaten on the one stage that mattered. He's back for the part he didn't finish.
The full scout
Sayin's first act was a quiet kind of stardom. The former Alabama signee who left when Nick Saban retired found his home at Ohio State, and in his first year starting he completed 77% of his passes -- the best in the nation -- for 3,610 yards and 32 touchdowns. He was the only underclassman invited to New York as a Heisman finalist.
What he didn't get was the trophy or the title. Indiana beat Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship and Fernando Mendoza ran off with the Heisman; the door Sayin had pried open swung shut on the biggest stage. That's the engine of his 2026: fans don't just want him better, they want it finished.
He's built to deliver -- 14 career starts now, the nation's best receiver in Jeremiah Smith, and a roster that opens the year as a national-title favorite. The forward question isn't whether Sayin is good; the nation-leading numbers settled that. It's whether the quiet accuracy becomes a closer's resume -- and whether the next time the season comes down to one game, the result flips.
On tape Sayin's 2025 wasn't just good, it was statistically absurd: he finished in the 99th percentile nationally in completion percentage, in expected points per dropback, and in success rate -- the three numbers that matter most, all at the ceiling. The game looks easy because he plays it fast and clean; he was sacked on barely 1.5% of his dropbacks, top-five in the country at getting the ball out. He isn't a gunslinger pushing it deep -- his average throw was middle-of-the-pack in air yards -- he's a precision machine who takes exactly what the defense gives and never gives it back. The honest questions trail every efficient passer in a loaded offense: at 6-1 he doesn't tower, and with Jeremiah Smith outside, skeptics ask how much is him. In Ohio State's attack he's the conductor -- and 2026 is the year he answers the doubt the only way a quarterback can, by carrying a title himself.
Plenty of quarterbacks have the bigger line; the stage does the rest
Receipt: 271 yds passing, 4 TD vs Marshall (W 45–0)
When James Franklin got fired mid-2025 and Penn State went and hired Matt Campbell, the question wasn't whether the Nittany Lions would find a quarterback. It was whether Campbell's quarterback would follow him. Rocco Becht did, and so did about two dozen other Cyclones.
The full scout
The discourse around Penn State this offseason has a nickname: the "Penn State Cyclones." Campbell didn't just take the job after Franklin's seventh-ranked team lost three straight and got upset by UCLA; he brought 24 Iowa State players with him, including his longtime starter, his coordinator and his receiver room. Becht is the anchor of it. "Last year, it wasn't player-led, and the culture wasn't consistently present," he told ESPN of Franklin's final season. "Right now, everyone is completely bought in." He says he got chills the first time he walked into Beaver Stadium.
What he carries is the most starting wins of any returning quarterback in college football (26) and a body that's still healing. Becht played all 12 games in 2025 through a torn labrum, threw for nearly 1,000 fewer yards and nine fewer touchdowns than his 2024 peak, finished at 2,565 and 16 scores, and got surgery after the season that limited him through spring. That gap is the whole argument. Our perception signal pegs him in the 89th percentile of fan attention while his production lands at the 34th: a classic aura tax, the boards selling a gamer the play-by-play grades as merely steady (43rd-percentile EPA per dropback). The skeptics are loud too. His career-high completion rate is 62.9 percent, and analysts who slot him 18th nationally and behind six Big Ten quarterbacks say the deep-shot diet and the arm talent cap his ceiling.
And yet he's a real Heisman dark horse, named to award watch lists before taking a snap in blue and white. The schedule is one of the league's more manageable, the receivers are his old ones, the staff is his old one. The question Happy Valley is actually asking: at Iowa State a healthy Becht was a very good story; at Penn State, with USC, Michigan and Washington on the board, anything short of the Playoff is a failed gamble. Can he be the difference in the games Iowa State never got to play?
On tape Becht is a downfield gambler who lives a tier above the field on aggression and a tick below on touch. His 12.8-yard average depth of target sits 75th percentile and his sack rate (61st) shows a quarterback who'll hold for the shot rather than check down, while his interception rate (61st) says the gambles mostly stay clean. The efficiency is the rub: 51st-percentile explosive-pass rate, 50th-percentile pass success, 48th-percentile EPA per dropback, 45th-percentile completion percentage, and a 29th-percentile touchdown rate that screams a 2025 spent grinding through a bad shoulder. Add eight rushing scores and you get a steady, willing, slightly streaky operator whose tape is a healthy-arm bet, not a finished product.
Touchdown passes is where he separates from the pack
The team around him carries more of this than his own line
Receipt: 378 yds passing, 3 TD vs Boise State (W 34–27)
Dante Moore was a projected top-five NFL pick. He said no, and came back to Oregon -- to finish something a 56-22 playoff beating left undone. The most interesting quarterback decision of the offseason now has a full season to be judged.
The full scout
Most quarterbacks with Moore's draft stock are gone. He left it on the table. After a 13-2 season -- 71.8% completions, 3,565 yards, 30 touchdowns -- that ended in a 56-22 Playoff semifinal humbling by Indiana, the projected first-rounder turned down the draft and returned to Eugene. His reasons were unusually candid: only 20 career starts across stops at UCLA and Oregon, a sense he 'wasn't prepared yet,' and a title that got away.
It's a bet on himself in the most public way possible -- and it reshaped the sport's offseason. His return convinced the Ducks' five-star transfer, Dylan Raiola, that 2026 would be a redshirt year in the wings.
So the forward stakes cut two ways. For Oregon, Moore is a Playoff-tested starter with unfinished business and a roster built to contend. For Moore personally, it's a referendum: a season to prove the extra year was wisdom, not hesitation -- and to make sure the last image of his Oregon career isn't a 34-point semifinal loss.
On tape Moore is a clean, efficient pocket passer, and the metrics are emphatic about it: 97th percentile in efficiency, 98th in both explosive-pass rate and touchdown rate, with a sack rate in the top tenth -- he gets it out, he hits the big one, he finishes drives. What the resume lacks isn't production, it's volume: just 20 career starts across UCLA and Oregon, the real reason a projected top-five pick came back. The blemish the tape keeps is the stage -- a 56-22 semifinal where the moment swallowed the offense whole. So 2026 isn't a skills audit; the numbers passed it. It's an experience-and-poise one: whether a full season as the unquestioned starter turns an elite-efficient college passer into one who carries a playoff night instead of being buried by one.
Elite share of the passing game — the standout number on the line
The box score alone doesn't put him this high
Receipt: 241 yds passing, 3 TD, 2 rushing TD vs Colorado (W 41–7)
Cult Hero— A big deal with his own team's fans -- but the rest of the country hasn't caught on yet. (59 mentions, zero from the national conversation.)
Receipt: 325 yds passing, 4 TD, 1 rushing TD vs Northern Illinois (W 42–17)
Noah Fifita could have cashed a portal check and chased a blue-blood. Instead the kid who keeps choosing Arizona signed up for one more, calling it 'all or nothing' and 'unfinished business' on his way out of the Holiday Bowl. Tucson is already saying Heisman. The rest of the country hasn't looked up.
The full scout
The story this offseason isn't whether Fifita comes back -- he settled that the night of the loss to SMU, telling anyone listening he had unfinished business. It's the gap between how Arizona talks about him and how everyone else does. Brent Brennan calls him a 'Heisman-caliber candidate' and means it; CBS, On3 and SI all spent the spring arguing he's the Big 12's best quarterback, edging Brendan Sorsby and the new transfer arms for the top spot. He's the program's all-time passing touchdown leader (73 career scores, first nationally among 2026 returners) and the first Arizona QB to make first-team all-conference since 1975. And yet the national board has him at +10000 to win the Heisman -- one writer literally headlined the disconnect 'He Can Win The Heisman. So Why Is Nobody Talking About Him?'
The receipts say the 2025 bounce-back was real but not yet transcendent: 3,228 yards, 29 touchdowns, six picks, and play-by-play that ranks 64th percentile in pass success rate and 70th in touchdown rate but only 45th in EPA per dropback among 233 FBS quarterbacks. That's the tension our own signal flags -- the buzz around Fifita (78th percentile perception) is running about 18 points ahead of the production (60th), an aura tax the fanbase is happy to keep paying.
The quietly important variable: Seth Doege returns as coordinator, the first time in Fifita's college career he's kept the same play-caller in back-to-back years. Doege's Air Raid is what turned a four-win team into a nine-win one, and year-two fluency is the whole bet. The forward stake is the one every Wildcats board is chewing on: does the loyalty finally get rewarded with a Big 12 title and a Heisman invite, or does 'all or nothing' end the way Arizona seasons usually do?
On tape A steady, low-risk operator more than a gunslinger. The play-by-play paints a quarterback who wins on accuracy and decision-making rather than explosion: 64th percentile in pass success rate and 70th in touchdown rate, but a careful, underneath profile -- 67th percentile in average depth of target and just 35th in explosive-pass rate. He protects the ball reasonably (69th percentile interception rate) and his overall efficiency lands middle-of-the-pack at 45th percentile EPA per dropback. The 35th-percentile sack rate hints he'll eat some pressure behind a shaky front. He adds just enough as a runner (3 rushing scores) to keep defenses honest without being a designed-run threat. The ceiling lives in the rhythm of Doege's Air Raid; the question is whether he can stretch the field vertically enough to turn efficient into elite.
Inside the top twenty-five quarterbacks on production
Ball security is the soft spot
Receipt: 227 yds passing, 2 rushing TD vs Tulane (W 31–20)
Avery Johnson survived a 6-6 disappointment in 2025, then chose to come back and fix it. His new head coach is Collin Klein — the man who recruited him to Manhattan — and their reunion sets up exactly the kind of senior-year redemption arc that award voters notice.
The full scout
Johnson's dual-threat profile is already elite on the ground. Our play-by-play clocks him at the 89th percentile in sack avoidance, the 89th percentile in run success rate, and the 89th percentile in explosive run rate — the full trifecta that tells you he's dangerous with his legs in every sense: elusive in the pocket, decisive at the line, and capable of taking the top off a defense on a read-keep. He averaged 7.7 yards per carry on designed runs (72nd percentile), which isn't accident football. That's a quarterback who plays with patience and then punishes hesitation.
The honest part of the 2025 ledger is that the passing numbers didn't match. His success rate through the air (44th percentile) and explosive pass rate (31st percentile) lagged well behind a program with Big 12 championship ambitions. The 6-6 season wasn't all on him — K-State's supporting cast thinned — but it raised the central question for 2026: can a quarterback who is genuinely elite with his legs become a complete enough passer to make defenses defend the whole field?
Under Klein, who ran this same read-option system as a player and helped design the offense that made Johnson a prospect, the answer is plausibly yes. Johnson enters 2026 already sixth on K-State's all-time passing yardage list with a chance to shatter multiple program records. The Maxwell Trophy is within range if the passing efficiency catches up to the rushing brilliance. That is the entire 2026 season, compressed into one sentence.
On tape Johnson is a runner who happens to throw — and on designed carries, that combination is borderline unguardable. The defining cluster is his 89th-percentile sack avoidance, 89th-percentile run success rate, and 89th-percentile explosive run rate: he keeps the pocket clean, converts the first down when he pulls it, and occasionally breaks one for 58 yards (his long in 2025). His 72nd-percentile YPC (7.7 yards per carry) confirms this isn't volume padding. Through the air, the picture is more complicated — 38th-percentile pass success rate, 44th-percentile explosive pass rate — pointing to a quarterback whose arm is an asset but whose eyes and timing still have room to grow. In 2026, the gap between his rushing ceiling and his passing floor is the whole story.
LJ Martin led the Big 12 in rushing and won Offensive Player of the Year. He could have moved on. Instead he's "not done yet" -- back to chase BYU's career rushing record and the program's first real Playoff push.
The full scout
He led the Big 12 in rushing with 1,305 yards on a conference-high 236 carries, scored 12 times, added 36 catches, and walked off with Offensive Player of the Year -- the workhorse engine of a BYU team with rising ambitions. He returns for his senior season with two prizes in sight: the school's career rushing record (within about 1,347 yards) and a CFP berth, paired with quarterback Bear Bachmeier in a backfield built to contend. The forward stakes are legacy and a ceiling: the most-used back in his conference, chasing a number that would etch him into BYU history and a season that could put the Cougars in the Playoff for the first time. For Martin, 2026 is the year the productive grinder goes for something permanent.
On tape Martin is a high-volume, reliable lead back rather than a flashy one. Our play-by-play has him solidly above-average -- a 67th-percentile yards-per-carry on the heaviest workload in his conference -- with the efficiency profile of a grinder (mid-pack success rate and EPA per carry) who wins by accumulation and durability more than explosion. He's a dependable receiver too (36 catches), the every-down sort a Playoff hopeful can lean on for 25 touches without blinking. The game is steadiness: he doesn't come off the field, he doesn't fumble away games, and over four quarters the yards pile up. For a team chasing its first Playoff, that kind of bell-cow reliability is its own form of star power.
Among the nation's best in share of the passing game
The team around him carries more of this than his own line
Maddux Madsen does not aim for underneath completions. He aims for the end zone and the 20-yard marker, and Boise State's third straight Mountain West title says that philosophy works. The 2026 question is whether a rebuilt receiving corps can keep pace with a quarterback who throws the ball down the field by design.
The full scout
Madsen's 2025 stat line looks modest on the surface — 2,333 yards, 58.3 percent completions, 18 touchdowns, 9 interceptions — but the play-by-play context reframes it. His average depth of target sits at the 78th percentile nationally, and his explosive pass rate (completions of 15-plus yards) ranks 79th. He is not a timing-rhythm quarterback padding completion percentages on three-yard hitches. Every time he drops back he is asking his receivers to beat somebody.
That approach inflates his touchdown rate to the 71st percentile and his EPA per dropback to the 67th — real production, generated by taking shots. The cost is visible: a 31st-percentile completion percentage and a 14th-percentile interception rate. Those are not anomalies to explain away; they are the predictable tradeoff of a vertically-oriented offense. Madsen's sack rate (64th percentile) suggests he moves on quickly when the shot isn't there, which limits the damage on any given play.
The 2026 stakes are concrete. Boise State's top four pass-catchers from 2025 all moved on, leaving Madsen to build chemistry with an essentially new supporting cast. If the Broncos can develop a genuine go-to downfield target, the infrastructure is already in place for a Davey O'Brien watch-list conversation. If the receiver room sputters, the interception rate becomes the loudest number on the page.
On tape Madsen plays like a quarterback who has decided that short completions are someone else's job. His 78th-percentile average depth of target and 87th-percentile explosive pass rate are not byproducts of receiver separation — they are the plan. He takes the shot, finishes at a 87th-percentile touchdown rate when drives reach the red zone, and limits negative plays with a 64th-percentile sack rate. The completion percentage (31st percentile) and interception rate (20th percentile) are the honest price of that scheme. He is not a game-manager; he is a vertical-first signal-caller who needs talent around him to function at his ceiling.
Marcel Reed ran and gunned Texas A&M to its first College Football Playoff. Then, before the bracket even started, he announced he was coming back. He's one cleaner season from the Heisman race -- if he can stop giving the ball away.
The full scout
In 2025 he threw for 3,169 yards and 25 touchdowns, ran for 493 more and six scores, and carried the Aggies to an 11-0 start and their first Playoff berth. He's a true dual-threat -- 6-1, 185, a problem with his legs and a gunslinger with his arm -- and the same aggression that produced the highlights produced 12 interceptions. He bet on himself, announcing his return before the Playoff began. The forward stakes are the tightrope every aggressive young quarterback walks: cut the giveaways without dulling the edge that makes him dangerous. Do that on a roster built for a Playoff run, and he's in the Heisman conversation. For Reed, 2026 is the year the boom-or-bust quarterback decides which one he is.
On tape Reed plays fast and fearless, and the data is a portrait of aggression. As a runner he's genuinely elite -- our play-by-play grades his rushing success rate in the 88th percentile and his EPA per carry in the 86th. As a passer he pushes the ball harder than almost anyone: a 97th-percentile average depth of target, which fuels both an 75th-percentile EPA per dropback and the interceptions (a 45th-percentile, i.e. fairly high, pick rate). The one number that lags is accuracy -- a 38th-percentile completion rate, the cost of all that downfield ambition. He's a shot-taker who runs like a back, the kind of quarterback who wins games in chunks and loses them in turnovers. The development is the trade: keep the aggression, sharpen the touch.
Rushing touchdowns is where he separates from the pack
Giveaways are the knock
Two years ago Sam Leavitt dragged Arizona State to a Big 12 title and the Playoff as a redshirt freshman. Then injuries stole his 2025. Now he's the first quarterback of the Lane Kiffin era at LSU.
The full scout
Leavitt's college career has been a spike and a setback. As a redshirt freshman in 2024 he was the engine of one of the sport's best turnaround stories, leading Arizona State to a Big 12 championship and a Playoff berth. His 2025 never got going -- a broken stretch of seven games before injuries ended it.
So he hit the portal as its top quarterback and chose the highest-pressure landing spot available: Baton Rouge, as the first starter of Lane Kiffin's LSU. The fit is the story -- a mobile, gunslinging passer handed the keys to an offense built by one of the sport's sharpest play-callers, on a roster expected to return to the Playoff in Year 1.
The forward question is health and fit: a full, healthy season of the 2024 version of Leavitt makes LSU a contender and Kiffin's debut a hit. Anything less, and a new era opens with a familiar question at quarterback.
On tape Leavitt is a dual-threat whose legs are the headline -- and the 2025 numbers say so emphatically. In an injury-shortened season his passing graded middling (28th percentile in completion, 41st in efficiency), but as a runner he was elite: top-3% in the country in rushing success rate and yards per carry, 98th percentile in explosive runs. He's a problem the instant the pocket moves. The fit at LSU is the whole story: Lane Kiffin builds explosive, quarterback-friendly attacks, and Leavitt's mobility adds a dimension Kiffin's recent passers haven't had -- if the arm catches up to the legs. The caveats are health and consistency as a thrower, and 2026 is his first year in a new system. Click early and it's the SEC's most fun offense; if the passing stays middling, defenses make him a runner and find the ceiling.
Nobody in college football carried the ball more than Kewan Lacy in 2025. He scored 24 touchdowns doing it -- then turned down a pursuit to stay and anchor a made-over Ole Miss. The workload is the point.
The full scout
He led all of FBS with 307 carries, ran for roughly 1,564 yards, scored 23 or 24 touchdowns, made first-team All-SEC and powered Ole Miss to a College Football Playoff semifinal -- a true bell cow in every sense. When a transfer pursuit came, he re-signed with the Rebels rather than chase it. The forward stakes are continuity through change: with the program made over around him, Lacy is the established constant, the back an offense can hand the ball to thirty times and trust to wear a defense down and finish at the goal line. The question for 2026 isn't whether he can carry the load -- he proved that -- it's whether the offense around him keeps the lanes open. For a runner this durable and this productive in the red zone, that's the difference between a good year and an All-America one.
On tape Lacy is a volume-and-finish back, and the data draws him honestly. The elite trait is scoring: an 79th-percentile rushing-touchdown rate, which fits a back who found the end zone two dozen times and lived at the goal line. The efficiency numbers are more workmanlike -- a 29th-percentile yards-per-carry and a 58th-percentile success rate -- the mark of a runner who took an enormous, grinding workload (a nation-leading 307 carries) rather than a home-run hitter picking his spots. He's also a capable outlet (84th-percentile catch rate). The profile is a downhill, physical, every-down grinder: not the back who breaks a 60-yarder, but the one who gets you the tough four yards on third down and punches it in from the two. Durability and finishing are the whole game, and both are his.
Elite rushing touchdowns — the standout number on the line
Plenty of backs have the bigger line; the stage does the rest
Jadan Baugh did everything for Florida in 2025 -- ran for over 1,100 yards, caught 31 passes, and dropped 266 on Florida State. PFF says no Power Four back has been more valuable over the last two years. The breakout is next.
The full scout
He carried it 220 times for 1,170 yards and eight scores, added 31 catches as a genuine receiving threat, and saved a 266-yard explosion for the rivalry game against Florida State -- a 5.3-per-carry, all-situations workhorse who earned an 89.5 PFF grade and, by PFF's measure, has been as valuable as any Power Four back over two seasons. Now he anchors a made-over Florida offense entering his junior year. The forward stakes are the leap from very good to All-America: the durability and the three-down skill set are already there, so 2026 is about volume, health, and an offense that gives him room. For a back this complete, the breakout isn't a question of ability -- it's a question of opportunity.
On tape Baugh is a true three-down back whose value is in his completeness rather than one elite trait. Our play-by-play has him solidly above-average as a runner -- mid-pack yards-per-carry and success rate on heavy volume -- but the number that pops is his 87th-percentile catch rate: he's a reliable, natural receiver out of the backfield, not just a checkdown. He runs with patience and enough power to handle a feature load (220 carries, and a 266-yard rivalry game says he can take over). He's not a track-speed home-run hitter; he's the every-down hammer who catches, pass-protects, and finishes -- the kind of back a coordinator can build a whole offense's rhythm around.
Bryce Underwood was the No. 1 recruit in the country, flipped to Michigan in a record NIL deal, and started every game as a true freshman. He flashed early and faded late. The sophomore leap is the whole reason the bet was made.
The full scout
Few recruits have ever arrived with this much weight: the No. 1 overall prospect in 2025, a headline flip from LSU to Michigan, and a true freshman who started all thirteen games. The season was a freshman season -- 2,428 passing yards, 11 touchdowns against nine interceptions, plus 392 rushing yards and six scores from a 6-4, 228 frame. The arc is the tell: a sharp debut and an early Offensive Rookie of the Year nod, then a fade down the stretch, with seven of his nine interceptions coming in the final five games and three in a bowl loss to Texas. Now, with a retooled coaching staff and a year of starts behind him, the forward stakes are consolidation -- cutting the late-season turnovers while keeping the dual-threat upside. For the most hyped quarterback recruit of his era, 2026 is where the talent is supposed to become production.
On tape Underwood already passes the eye test -- 6-4, 228, with what scouts have long called premier arm talent, velocity to every level, and a natural deep ball. The freshman data is genuinely encouraging where it counts: our play-by-play graded his dropback success rate in the 51st percentile and his EPA per dropback in the 74th, and he pushed the ball downfield (68th-percentile average depth of target) rather than checking down. Recruiting evaluators credited his "confidence and poise" under center; the development note is mechanical -- he can get tense in the upper body with inconsistent feet in the pocket, the kind of thing that produced his late-season interception spike. Add a real running threat (392 yards, six scores) and the profile is a high-ceiling dual-threat whose year-two job is steadiness, not flash.
Nate Sheppard ran for over 1,100 yards and broke Duke's freshman records -- as a true freshman. PFF says he "played like a five-star." The scariest part is that the sophomore year hasn't happened yet.
The full scout
As a true freshman he carried it 200 times for 1,132 yards at 5.66 a pop, scored 11 times, caught 37 passes, and set Duke's freshman rushing records on his way to Freshman All-America and second-team All-ACC honors. The trait that travels: 63 forced missed tackles, ninth-most in the country, a make-you-miss elusiveness that already grades among the nation's best. PFF ranks him the No. 7 returning running back for 2026. The forward stakes are simply the leap: he's a three-down back with year-one production most players never reach, and the sophomore year is where hyped underclassmen either consolidate or explode. For Sheppard, there's no arrival question left to answer -- only how high the ceiling goes.
On tape Sheppard is an elusive, explosive three-down back, and the freshman tape already grades like a veteran's. Our play-by-play puts his yards-per-carry in the 72nd percentile and his rushing success rate in the 73rd -- efficient and explosive at once -- and the 63 forced missed tackles (ninth nationally) are the make-you-miss element behind it. He's a real receiving threat too (37 catches), which is what makes him a true three-down player rather than a between-the-tackles grinder. The profile is a back who creates yards on his own: a cut, a jump-cut, a missed tackle, and he's gone. At his age, with this production, the development curve is the whole story -- and it's pointing straight up.
Elite completion rate — the standout number on the line
The platform is carrying the case more than the numbers are
Dylan Raiola left a starting job and Nebraska's throne for a better shot at Oregon. Then the Ducks' NFL-bound starter shocked everyone and came back -- and now football's most famous transfer is redshirting.
The full scout
Read that again: the highest-ranked recruit Nebraska ever signed -- son of a 14-year NFL center, the face of Matt Rhule's rebuild -- walked away from 22 career starts and won't take a meaningful snap in 2026. The exits weren't only his: his uncle was let go from Nebraska's staff and his brother decommitted, so the family's Lincoln chapter closed all at once.
What he's really betting on is 2027. Dante Moore's surprise return turned the Oregon move into the same apprenticeship Moore once served behind Dillon Gabriel -- a year to learn the system before the keys are his. Before the broken leg ended his Nebraska season, Raiola was completing 72%. The arm was never the question. The question is patience: whether a five-star raised to be The Guy can spend a year as the understudy -- and whether the gamble reads as brilliant or premature when 2027 finally comes.
On tape Raiola looks the part to an almost cartoonish degree -- a broad, NFL-built frame, a compact over-the-top release, the pre-snap command that drew Patrick Mahomes comparisons before a college snap. The tape, what there is of it, backs the projection: 86th-percentile accuracy and an 18-to-6 touchdown-to-interception line before a broken leg ended his Nebraska season at nine games. The honest tell is the sack rate -- bottom-ten percent -- he holds the ball hunting the throw, for better and worse, the habit a young quarterback either refines into patience or pays for. The catch for 2026 is that there won't be new tape: he's redshirting behind Dante Moore, developing in practice, not on Saturdays. This is a projection year, banking reps for the 2027 audition the whole bet is built around.
Nico Iamaleava was the face of the NIL era's ugliest divorce -- a contract fight that ended with him leaving Tennessee for UCLA. Then the Bruins went 3-9. He could have left again. Instead he's running it back to prove the talent was always real.
The full scout
The saga is the part everyone knows: a spring-2025 standoff over his deal at Tennessee, a skipped practice, a coach "moving on," the portal, and a landing at UCLA inside of a week. The football got buried under it. In 2025 he threw for 1,928 yards with 13 touchdowns and seven interceptions, completed 64 percent, and led the Bruins in rushing with 505 yards -- including a five-touchdown night in a 42-37 upset of seventh-ranked Penn State -- on a team that still finished 3-9. He forwent the 2026 draft to come back under a new staff, betting on himself a second time. The forward stakes are whether the most-scrutinized quarterback in college football can finally turn five-star traits into steady, in-structure production. Get there, and the redemption arc lands and the draft stock follows. Don't, and the saga stays the story.
On tape Iamaleava is a dynamic athlete with a big arm and a production gap, and the data tells the same story the scouts do. As a runner he's elite -- our play-by-play puts his EPA per carry in the 98th percentile and his explosive-run rate in the 97th, top-end quarterback speed on designed runs and scrambles. As a passer he's been ordinary: an 18th-percentile EPA per dropback and an 11th-percentile average depth of target -- a lot of short, safe throws. Draft evaluators (The Draft Network) credit "prototypical" arm talent and high-velocity throws into tight windows, but flag that he "missed too many shots downfield" and can "lock onto his primary read" rather than progress -- best improvising, a work in progress within structure. The frame is the whole career: the tools are real, the in-rhythm passing is the unfinished part.
Plenty of backs have the bigger line; the stage does the rest
Cult Hero— A big deal with his own team's fans -- but the rest of the country hasn't caught on yet. (28 mentions, zero from the national conversation.)
Cult Hero— A big deal with his own team's fans -- but the rest of the country hasn't caught on yet. (20 mentions, zero from the national conversation.)
John Mateer broke his thumb, then kept playing. The numbers that survived that wreckage — 91st-percentile rushing touchdown rate, 57th-percentile explosive pass rate — tell you what the healthy version looks like. He's back in Norman for 2026, and the SEC should take note.
The full scout
Mateer arrived at Oklahoma as the Washington State transfer nobody in the SEC had film on, and for the first month of 2025 he looked like the most dangerous quarterback in the country. Then came the broken throwing hand against the Tigers, and what followed was 14 touchdowns against 11 interceptions on a compromised release — numbers that understate both how good he'd been and how bad the injury was.
The play-by-play data cuts through the noise. As a runner, Mateer graded at the 87th percentile in rushing touchdown rate and the 89th in success rate on scrambles and designed runs — he converts, he doesn't just accumulate. As a passer, his 57th-percentile explosive pass rate signals genuine downfield ability; the 59th-percentile EPA per dropback is the injury hangover, not the baseline. The 45th-percentile interception rate is the number that has to move in 2026, and it almost certainly will with a healthy hand.
He has returned for his final season with Ben Arbuckle calling plays in Year 2 together. He's on the Maxwell and Heisman preseason watch lists, the weapons around him are better, and the system fits his dual-threat profile as well as any offense in college football. The question isn't whether the talent is there. It's whether the thumb is.
On tape Mateer is a dual-threat whose running game grades elite by every efficiency measure — 87th percentile in rushing touchdown rate (he punches it in), 89th in rushing success rate (he moves the chains), 83rd in EPA per carry (he generates value on the ground). As a passer he lives over the top: an 57th-percentile explosive pass rate says he's willing to attack downfield and has the arm to make it work. The tension is turnover rate — a 45th-percentile interception rate in 2025 that tracked almost exactly with the moment his thumb broke. At 6'0.5", 200 pounds, he's not a bruiser but he's slippery enough to make defenses account for him on every snap, which opens the windows his receivers need.
Ohio State sits 2–1 and No. 7 in the AP poll — a contender's platform
Plenty of backs have the bigger line; the stage does the rest
A freshman named Bo Jackson ran for over 1,000 yards at Ohio State last fall -- joining a list that includes Maurice Clarett and JK Dobbins. The name is a coincidence. The talent isn't.
The full scout
Jackson's first season was a statement: 1,090 rushing yards at 6.1 a carry, enough to make him the fifth true freshman in Ohio State history to crack 1,000 -- company that includes Robert Smith, Maurice Clarett, JK Dobbins, and TreVeyon Henderson. A teammate, James Peoples, transferred out this offseason in part because Jackson had simply become the guy.
The forward case is about the gap between good and great. He scored just six rushing touchdowns -- low for an Ohio State back -- and may share carries with returning and added depth, so 2026 is about efficiency and finishing, not just volume. On a national-title contender stacked with Sayin and Jeremiah Smith, a back who turns 1,000 quiet yards into 1,400 loud ones is the piece that tips a very good offense into an unstoppable one. The name will always draw the double-take. This is the year he makes people remember him for his own.
On tape Jackson is a one-cut runner with a second gear -- he presses the hole, plants, and is past the second level before the angle closes, which shows up as an 85th-percentile yards-per-carry and a 72nd-percentile explosive-run rate as a true freshman. He's not just a between-the-tackles back; 19 catches keep him on the field on third down, a fit for the way Ohio State spreads you out and runs behind it. The honest gap is the finish: his success rate sat in the 67th percentile and his touchdown rate in the bottom fifteen -- he hits the big one but doesn't yet own the grind or the red zone, which is how a back with his yardage scored only six times. So 2026 isn't about whether he's good; it's whether the explosive freshman becomes the complete one -- the same chunk runs, more of them ending in the end zone.
Cult Hero— A big deal with his own team's fans -- but the rest of the country hasn't caught on yet. (53 mentions, zero from the national conversation.)
2–1 Virginia, unranked — the résumé follows the team
Beau Pribula has attended more campuses than most fans have visited stadiums, but the tape at Missouri shows a quarterback who genuinely knows how to complete passes. He ranked 87th percentile in completion rate among FBS QBs in 2025 — third in the SEC — while coming back from a dislocated ankle to start the Tigers' final two games. Virginia is betting that precision translates across conferences.
The full scout
The Missouri chapter was more complicated than the box score admits. Pribula won the starting job after transferring from Penn State, led the Tigers to a 6-1 mark in games he started and finished, and posted a 174.25 passer rating against Kansas (30-for-39, 334 yards, three touchdowns). The nine interceptions and a late-season ankle injury muted the headline numbers, but the underlying play-by-play was kinder: 87th-percentile completion rate, 84th-percentile pass success rate on 219 tracked dropbacks.
The limiting factor is obvious in the data. Pribula's average depth of target sat in the 26th percentile and his explosive-pass rate in the 22nd, meaning he lives underneath the coverage. That is a workable offensive identity — not a flaw — if Virginia offensive coordinator Des Kitchings builds a system around quick-hitting routes and designed runs. Pribula also brings six rushing touchdowns and 95 carries from 2025, enough mobility to keep defenses honest in a spread-option framework.
The 2026 stake is simple: Virginia needs a starter who can manage an offense without self-destructing, and Pribula is already favored to win that job. A clean pocket and a scheme that plays to his strengths could make him one of the ACC's more efficient distributors. Push him to win vertically, and the 34th-percentile explosive rate becomes the ceiling in a hurry.
On tape Pribula is a check-down artist masquerading as a dual-threat, and the PBP data makes the case without apology. His 87th-percentile completion rate and 84th-percentile pass success rate are the top-line moat numbers — he processes quickly, gets the ball out, and avoids taking chances he cannot win. The tradeoff shows up in the 26th-percentile average depth of target and 34th-percentile explosive-pass rate: he is not pushing the ball down the field. The 21st-percentile sack rate (he takes sacks more than most) is the one wrinkle that undercuts the quick-release narrative and suggests he can be flushed from a clean pocket when defenses force him off his first read. The rushing volume (95 carries, 6 touchdowns) is real but comes with a modest 3.1 yards per carry — he is a threat to run, not a runner by design.
Elite receiving yards — the standout number on the line
Production is solid, not the reason he's here
If the season plays out as the market expects
Who Owns Each Region
The Heisman's six voting regions (145 electors each) reward hometown stars.
Pick Field to see each region's projected leader in his team colors — or pick a
player to light up his own footprint: bright where he projects first, fading where
he trails.
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Projected standings by region
Projection only — no ballots are cast until December. Each region's order
is the market-implied national strength (de-vigged sportsbook futures) times a modeled
home-region boost, the Heisman's documented hometown bias. Points are indexed (national
strength ×100). It recomputes as the odds move; in-season it switches to the live model.
Live model output from heisman_rankings_weekly. Next: glyph traits, real headshots + team colors, curated/chronicle blurbs, and the long-tail searchable field.
