Ad Disclosure
Betting Stuff: What to do now that Dillon Gabriel is the Heisman favorite
Published:
Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel is now the favorite (or tied at the top) to win the 2024 Heisman Trophy.
In recent weeks, Gabriel has surged to the top of the board at most major US sportsbooks. At FanDuel and BetMGM, he and Georgia quarterback Carson Beck are tied for the shortest odds to win the award (+750). The same is true at DraftKings, though the price there is +800. Caesars has both priced at +650. At ESPN Bet and bet365, Gabriel is the outright favorite at +750.
Beck and Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers had been the favorites for the award since most books started taking tickets on the Heisman earlier this year.
An oddsmaker for The SuperBook in Las Vegas told ESPN’s David Purdum on Friday that there were “influential people that hopped on [Gabriel’s number] and said they liked it on some public spaces” and that caused his odds to tighten.
Four months ago, I wrote about why Gabriel was my favorite among the players with the shortest odds to win the award and everything mentioned then holds true today. The former Oklahoma and UCF passer is in line to inherit a goldmine of sorts within Oregon’s offense. The Ducks are a high-octane unit with playmakers all over the field. Led by a point guard-like performance from Bo Nix last season, they ranked second in scoring and second in per-play efficiency.
Oregon was a top-10 scoring offense and a top-10 efficiency offense in Dan Lanning’s first year at the helm as well. That was with a different coordinator (Kenny Dillingham). Will Stein took over ahead of the 2023 campaign and kept a number of the same principles. He’s back in 2024 looking to maximize Gabriel’s last season of eligibility.
From my March column:
Gabriel produced 42 total touchdowns and 4,033 yards of offense at Oklahoma. … If we’re talking about favorites, Gabriel is my favorite “favorite” because he ticks two key boxes: he plays for a contending team that’ll have a national spotlight every week, and he has massive statistical upside.
There’s still plenty of value in backing Gabriel as the favorite. According to ESPN Stats & Information, Gabriel at +750 would have the longest odds of any Heisman favorite entering the season in the last 15 years.
It’s still worth mentioning that among the last 5 Heisman winners, Bryce Young was the only player who opened their respective season as one of the top 3 favorites. But the quarterbacks who won it (Joe Burrow, Young, Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels) all produced 50 touchdowns.
Does Beck or Ewers come close to that number? Beck accounted for 28 in 2023; Ewers had 27. Either is good enough to win the award, but will either have a “Heisman season” like that of the quarterbacks who won before them? Gabriel was at 42 touchdowns last season and moved into a more talented offense.
Georgia won’t turn Beck into a weekly highlight factory at the expense of a championship run. Ewers doesn’t astound the way Williams or Daniels did. At Oregon, gaudy lines might just be a byproduct of the way the offense operates.
Nix was constantly bombarded with “checkdown merchant” insults while still managing to throw for more than 250 yards in 11 of his 14 games. He had at least 3 touchdowns in 11 of 14 games as well, including at least 4 passing scores in 4 of his final 6 games. With Gabriel possessing the ability to hurt defenses with his legs, Oregon can do a lot of the same things.
But, if you want to steer clear of a favorite and back someone to emerge from the field, Ohio State’s Will Howard is an interesting option for some of the same reasons as Gabriel.
He’s in a point guard role within an offense that has as high a ceiling as any in the country.
I keep having to remind myself that Chip Kelly left a Big Ten head coaching job to be Ryan Day’s offensive coordinator in Columbus. It’s remarkable to think about, but perhaps not as wild as it initially felt. Kelly wasn’t long for the UCLA job, and he’d grown obviously frustrated with all the recent change in college football. At Ohio State, he just gets to focus on the Xs and Os while Day handles the managerial duties. In other words, Kelly should be at his best.
Howard, a Kansas State transfer, will get to hand off to TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins. He’ll get to throw to Emeka Egbuka and Jeremiah Smith. Kelly hasn’t had this much talent since he left Oregon, and Howard won’t have to play out of his mind to put up numbers.
Howard threw 39 touchdown passes in 19 games over his final 2 seasons at Kansas State. He also ran for 12 more. Last season as the starter, he produced 33 total touchdowns. As a distributor in Ohio State’s offense, Howard could have a huge statistical season.
If he throws for more than 4,000 yards and produces 40-plus touchdowns, would that be enough to win the award? What if Ohio State was the best team in the country with Howard at the controls?
In January, Howard was +1200 at FanDuel. At the time of publication, he was +1400 at FanDuel. Bettors can get him at +1600 at ESPN Bet, which has an implied probability of 5.9%. I’d put the probability of a statistically relevant quarterback for the No. 1 or No. 2 team in the country winning the Heisman above 6%.
He’s probably not where I’d put my money, but he’s no doubt an interesting option. I still like Gabriel. And I still like Oklahoma State’s Ollie Gordon II, who was +7000 back in March and is +7500 today at FanDuel.
States: AZ, CO, CT, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, MD, KY, NC, MI, NJ, NY, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY
GET THE APP
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.