Eventual Heisman Winners Have Won 11 Straight On Halloween

This weekend provides us with our first non-pandemic Halloween Saturday in 11 years and it will be the last Halloween Saturday for another 11 years. So forgive this year’s crop of college football stars if they all dress up as Heisman candidates on game day.

Rarely have Heisman winners dressed as wide receivers on any late October day, but it’s becoming a more popular costume choice, as DeVonta Smith proved in 2020 and as wideout/cornerback Travis Hunter showed in 2024.

Smith, in fact, pulled off an impressive trick on Halloween in his 2020 Heisman season, treating Crimson Tide fans to 11 receptions for 203 yards and a season-high four TDs in a 41-0 win over Mississippi State.

He wasn’t the only Alabama star to orchestrate a Heisman trick, as both 2009 winner Mark Ingram and 2015 winner Derrick Henry pulled a disappearing act in their respective Heisman years as the Tide had Halloween byes during both seasons.

Talk about ghosting your fans!

In fact, no Heisman winner has lost on Halloween since the second year of the award in 1936, when Larry Kelley’s Yale squad fell to Dartmouth, 11-7. (At least the 1936 Heisman runner-up, Nebraska fullback Sam Francis, saw his Cornhuskers post a win on Halloween.)

That’s 90 years of Heismans winning on Halloween for an 11-1 overall record, so if your favorite Heisman favorite’s team falls on Saturday, look out.

Before Smith’s 2020 performance, Ricky Williams was the most recent Heisman winner to lace ‘em up on Halloween in 1998. The Longhorn great rushed 37 times for 150 yards as Texas defeated No. 19 Nebraska, 20-16, in a big road upset.

Six year earlier in 1992, Gino Torretta led Miami to a 35-23 Halloween win against West Virginia, completing 28-of-40 passes for 363 yards and three touchdowns as No. 1 Miami improved to 8-0 with its 50th straight win at the Orange Bowl. Hurricane wide receiver Lamar Thomas hit the Heisman pose in the end zone after catching a 22-yard TD pass from Torretta, adding glaze on Torretta’s growing Heisman credentials.

Notre Dame throttled Navy, 56-13, in the 1987 Halloween game as Heisman winner Tim Brown’s services were only moderately needed. Still, Brown totaled 173 all-purpose yards, which included three receptions for 105 yards.

USC’s Marcus Allen got all the candy on Halloween in 1981 with a career effort in the Trojans’ 41-17 win over Washington State. He carried the ball 44 times for 289 yards, scoring three times on the ground while adding a scoring reception.

Allen’s future Oakland Raiders teammate Jim Plunkett —who he would win a Super Bowl with in 1984 — led Stanford to a 48-10 walloping on Halloween in 1970. Plunkett completed 13 passes for 210 yards and three touchdowns in the win.

Notre Dame’s John Huarte led the Irish to a 40-0 win over Navy in Philadelphia on Halloween in 1964, throwing for 177 yards and three scores.

Five years earlier marked the most famous Halloween play in college football history, let alone Heisman lore, dubbed the Halloween Run courtesy of LSU’s Billy Cannon in 1959.

Cannon’s late 89-yard punt return in the Halloween mist sunk No. 3 Ole Miss, 7-3. Cannon rushed 12 times for 48 yards in that game and had three punt returns for 120 yards.

Johnny Lattner was the first of three Notre Dame winners on Halloween, even though his contributions were modest in the Fighting Irish’s 1953 38-7 win over No. 20 Navy in South Bend.

Eleven years earlier, Georgia’s Frank Sinkwich became the first eventual Heisman winner to win on Halloween, leading the Bulldogs to a come-from-behind 21-10 win over Alabama. Sinkwich passed for 230 yards and a touchdown and also rushed 20 times as Georgia overcame a 10-0 halftime deficit in a game played in Atlanta.