Huge Weekend, Big Implications, Vivid Heisman Memories

November football can tip the Heisman scales a little more than a game in mid-September. That’s just the way it is. Recency bias is real and, ironically, decades old.

An exciting slate of games await us tomorrow and likely at least a few will have some serious Heisman implications, just as similar matchups in the past did. Let’s dig in.

No. 1 (AP) Miami plays at No. 4 Notre Dame Saturday in a primetime battle. Hurricane QB Darian Mensah is looking to become the third Miami player to win the Heisman and the second Miami Heisman finalist in the last three years.

Meanwhile Notre Dame CJ Carr will throw his hat into the Heisman ring should he lead the Fighting Irish to an upset win.

The schools have met 28 times, but only once during a Heisman winner’s season. If late-season performances often make or break a candidacy, the 1987 game is one of the exceptions.

No. 2 Miami shut out No. 10 Notre Dame, 24-0, in the Irish’s regular-season finale. Eventual Heisman winner Tim Brown was handcuffed along with the Notre Dame offense, catching a mere three passes for 37 yards en route to just 95 all-purpose yards, his lowest total since the season opener.

Thankfully for Brown, he still won the Heisman in a relative runaway, comfortably ahead of Syracuse’s second-place quarterback Don McPherson.

Three years later in South Bend, Notre Dame’s Raghib Ismail was a major Heisman contender and led the No. 6 Irish to a mid-season upset over Miami, 29-20. Ismail had a 94-yard kickoff return touchdown en route to 268 all-purpose yards.

But 1990 ultimately belonged to somebody else. Ismail would finish as runner-up that year behind BYU quarterback and Heisman winner Ty Detmer.

Like Ismail, Detmer led his team to an upset over Miami that season as No. 16 BYU defeated the top-ranked Hurricanes, 28-21, in the Cougars’ second game of the season.

Detmer completed 38-of-54 passes for 406 yards and three scores in front of the home fans at Cougar Stadium in Provo, Utah. The game propelled Detmer into the Heisman conversation and he remained at the forefront of the award talk for the rest of the year.

Eleven weeks later, Detmer’s 8-1 Cougars travelled to Utah, where he helped solidify his Heisman campaign with a 451-yard, five-TD effort in a 45-22 win over the Utes.

Tomorrow, the schools will meet for the 88th time, both featuring Heisman contending quarterbacks while the game drips with College Football Playoff implications.

Host No. 3 Utah is 8-0 while No. 7 BYU is 7-1. Utah features second-year QB Devon Dampier, who has a combined 23 passing and rushing touchdowns. BYU is led by second-year Bear Bachmeier, who has thrown 12 TDs and rushed for another seven.

A huge performance could propel either deep into the Heisman race.

No. 9 Alabama plays at No. 15 LSU tomorrow and somehow it’s not the biggest game of the day. Both teams have two losses, the loser facing a massive blow to its CFP hopes. Tiger QB Sam Leavitt is hearing his name whispered among Heisman considerations.

The game has been a Heisman springboard in the past and four of the past seven Heisman winners played in the series.

Bryce Young helped solidify his Heisman credentials by leading Alabama to a 20-14 Nov. 6 win over LSU in 2021, throwing for 302 yards and two scores. A year earlier, former Tide teammate DeVonta Smith posted a season-high 231 yards on eight receptions, scoring three times in a late-season 55-17 romp over the Tigers.

In 2019, it was LSU’s Joe Burrow who led the No. 2 Tigers to a 46-41 win over No. 3 Alabama on Nov. 9, passing for 393 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for 64 yards.

No. 2 Georgia travels to play at No. 12 Mississippi, both teams featuring Heisman contending QBs in Gunner Stockton and Trinidad Chambliss, respectively.

Herschel Walker, during his 1982 Heisman season, helped the Bulldogs defeat the Rebels in October, 33-10, rushing for 149 yards and three scores.

Unranked Oregon plays at No. 11 Ohio State in what has been a titanic matchup in recent years. The series, just 12 games deep, has only featured one Heisman winner and that was Marcus Mariota, who had already won the trophy when his Ducks took on the Buckeyes in the 2015 national championship game in January.

Ohio State got the better of Mariota and the Ducks that day, with a 42-20 win. The Buckeyes withstood Mariota’s 338 passing yards and two scores.

We’ll finish by including an unassuming matchup, 3-5 Arkansas at 4-4 Auburn on Saturday. In 2010, Cam Newton was midway through a historic Heisman run as the Tigers hosted No. 12 Arkansas. Newton led Auburn to a season-high 65 points, rushing for 188 yards and three scores to go with 140 passing yards and one TD pass.

• • • College football fans can now vote on a daily basis at hopefuls.heisman.com and have their vote count at the end of the season. The fan vote uses a season-long weighted model, developed in partnership with the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Center, that gives greater weight to votes cast later in the year as the body of work grows and conference races intensify. • • •