The Replacements

Vernon Adams of Oregon and Everett Golson of Florida State won’t just be run-of-the-mill starters when they strap it on for their teams this weekend. Both will join a select group of players over the years who’ve been tabbed to fill the shoes of Heisman Trophy winners.

Talk about pressure. There have only been 78 such players in history.

They are: The Replacements.

It’s not an easy task taking over for a college football legend, so it’s understandable that some handled it better than others. Three replacements did manage to win a national title in their first year taking over as a starter, but none won the Heisman itself (though two went on to win Heismans in their own right later on).

Adams, who replaces Marcus Mariota, and Golson, who replaces Jameis Winston, are incredibly unique additions to this group. Both are graduate transfers with one year to play who’ve had a considerable amount of success as starters at previous schools. No player has ever logged a 12-0 regular season and an appearance in a national title game before replacing a Heisman winner as Golson has. No Heisman replacement was ever an All-American at the FCS level the way Adams was. So if either performs at a high level, it won’t be as much of a surprise as those previous Heisman replacements who fared well.

Here’s a season-by-season look at how replacements fared in seasons aftertaking over for their Heisman predecessors. Due to the unreliability of some early statistics, we only go back to 1960 with this chart:

* — won Heisman later in career