Ad Disclosure
ESPN makes bold Heisman Trophy prediction
Published:
For most people, the Heisman Trophy race has already been decided. The numbers that Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa are putting up is too video game-like to be topped. He’s been the leader since Week 1.
But one ESPN writer believes that there might be a challenger to Tagovailoa. In fact, he believes Dwayne Haskins is going to claim the postseason award when it’s all said-and-done.
David Hale recently released his bold predictions for the second half of the college football season, one of which involved the Heisman Trophy race. And he doesn’t believe Tagovailoa will be the winner, despite his huge numbers and Alabama’s incredible success.
If the midpoint gives us a fairly clear picture of the playoff contenders, we tend to have a little worse track record predicting the Heisman. Tua Tagovailoa has been sensational so far, but he also has played limited second-half snaps, is currently battling an injury and lacks many marquee games to build a great Heisman narrative. Instead, Haskins can point to some big come-from-behind moments against TCU and Penn State and still has some huge matchups awaiting him. Moreover, he’s on the field a whole lot more to pad that résumé.
It’s a legitimate point to make. Haskins will (probably) have more opportunities to put up bigger numbers throughout the remainder of the season.
But would voters consider that Tagovailoa is playing 30 minutes of football? It seems like they might be willing to let that slide.
One thing can’t really be questioned, and that’s the fact that Tagovailoa and Haskins are the top two candidates in the race right now. It should be interesting to see how things play out.
Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB