The First Full Slate Of College Football Is Here. Time To Dig In.
The first full slate of college football is about to be unleashed and we are here for it.
Last weekend’s mini slate of games was a mere amuse bouche ahead of the avalanche of tailgating smorgasbords that will accompany the huge schedule of games over Labor Day weekend.
It starts tonight with 11 games, including ranked Missouri and Utah in action. Over the course of the next four days, all 25 ranked teams will play their season-openers, save for USC, which kicked off its season with a win last week.
Hundreds of Heisman hopefuls will make their first blocks and tackles, catch their first passes, throw their first touchdowns and gain their first yards of the season. Some will find glory, some humility. It’s a long season, let the chaos begin.
As a weekly reminder, 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.
The race for the Heisman is a months-long circuitous route more than nine decades in the making. Let’s take a peek at some of the top candidates in the land, names familiar from 2025.
Some of the schools most steeped in Heisman tradition — think USC, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma — have veteran candidates vying for attention. But it’s a big field.
Friday sees Trojan quarterback Jayden Maiava, who is trying to become the fourth quarterback to win a Heisman under head coach Lincoln Riley, play his second game before most players have played their first as USC hosts Fresno State at the Coliseum.
USC-Fresno State owns a slice of Heisman lore dating back to 2005, when the undefeated Trojans held off a determined Bulldog squad late in November.
The Trojans won 50-42 in large part to Heisman winner Reggie Bush’s monumental effort that saw him rush for 294 yards and two TDs to go with three receptions for 68 yards en route to over 500 all-purpose yards.
There are not many games on the docket this week that evince memorable Heisman matchups, but Saturday night’s No. 11 LSU-Clemson tilt comes to mind.
Setting aside the current drama surrounding the Tigers, let’s harken back to the start of 2020.
Less than a month after winning LSU’s second Heisman and about two months before Covid-19 shut down the world, Joe Burrow celebrated one of the most dominant seasons in Heisman history by leading the Tigers to a 42-25 over Clemson in the College Football Playoff national championship.
Burrow passed for a whopping 463 yards and five touchdowns on 31-of-49 passing while rushing for 58 yards and another score, leading an unrelenting Tiger offense. You can practically still smell the smoke from Burrow’s infamous celebratory cigar.
Where will the next Heisman memory come from?
Maybe it will come from Notre Dame QB CJ Carr, who will lead the No. 4 Fighting Irish in a primetime matchup against Wisconsin, or perhaps second-year Oklahoma QB John Mateer, who will guide the Sooners in a season-opener against UTEP.
QB Arch Manning and Texas host an intra-state contest against Texas State Saturday afternoon. Manning has been under the intense Heisman-candidate spotlight since before he arrived in Austin. Now a rare redshirt junior QB at the same school in which he started, Manning could be primed to become the Longhorns’ first Heisman winner since Ricky Williams.
Four of 2025’s Top 10 Heisman vote-getters return, including one finalist in Ohio State QB Julian Sayin, who is competing for Heisman attention with teammate and fellow Top 10 finisher wide receiver Jeremiah Smith. Top-ranked Ohio State opens its season by hosting Ball State.
Seventh-place finisher Gunner Stockton returns to Georgia and will lead the No. 3 Bulldogs against Tennessee State while eighth-place finisher Trinidad Chambliss will spearhead Ole Miss against Louisville in this week’s only matchup between ranked teams.
Sam Leavitt is the new QB at LSU. He is hoping to capture the same magic formula 2023 Heisman winner Jayden Daniels used when, like Leavitt, he transferred to Baton Rouge from Arizona State en route to the bronze statue.
The list goes on, but kickoffs around the country try are starting any minute. Let the games begin.
