The First Full Week Of College Football Is Here, With Some Decided Heisman Flavor To It

The 2025 college football season kicks off in earnest this week — as does the race for the 2025 Heisman Trophy — and there will be no bigger spotlight than in Columbus when No. 3 Ohio State hosts No. 1 Texas on Saturday (Aug. 30) at 12 p.m. ET.

The game, between the defending national champion Buckeyes and the top-ranked Longhorns, is dripping with Heisman connections.

The Buckeyes’ Horseshoe, often the center of the college football universe, will serve as a fitting setting as Heisman and Ohio State legend Archie Griffin will be honored in a pregame ceremony to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his 1975 Heisman Trophy.

Griffin is the only person to win back-to-back Heisman Trophies (1974-75) and the first to celebrate a pair of half-century anniversaries. Simply incredible.

He will be honored before kickoff and then watch some of the current game’s biggest stars take center stage as they take the first step in trying to match the first leg of Griffin’s one-of-a-kind double.

Griffin will also kick off a new tradition in Columbus as the Buckeyes’ first-ever pregame Victory Bell ringer. A year ago, Griffin became one of the few Buckeye players ever to dot the “i” in the script Ohio in the marching band’s 2024 season-opening halftime performance.

The last Buckeye to win the Heisman is Troy Smith in 2006, who led Ohio State to an undefeated regular season and a berth in the BCS title game that year.

Smith, following a strong 2005 junior season, solidified his place as a Heisman frontrunner when he led No. 1 Ohio State to a 24-7 road win over No. 2 Texas on Sept. 9, 2006. 

Smith completed 17-of-26 passes for 269 yards and two touchdowns in the decisive win, taking a tight grip on the Heisman race that he would never relinquish. 

Ohio State evened the overall series between the schools at 2-2 last season en route to the national title, defeating Texas in the Cotton Bowl, 28-14, in a CFP semifinal game.

Interestingly, neither of this week’s major stars and two of 2025’s top Heisman favorites — Buckeye sophomore wideout Jeremiah Smith and Longhorn junior QB Arch Manning — had much of an impact in the Cotton Bowl. Smith had only one catch for three yards while Manning sat behind starter Quinn Ewers.

They will take center stage Saturday and the massive amount of season-opening attention will provide both with an opportunity for some serious Heisman momentum. Texas, by the way, is looking to end a Heisman drought and win its first stiff-arm trophy since Ricky Williams in 1998

There are two other top 10 matches in a big Week 1, both with potential national title and Heisman Trophy implications. In one, No. 9 LSU will travel to No. 4 Clemson on Saturday night in a meeting of Tiger quarterbacks. LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier will square off against Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, each carrying the weight of expectations for their teams as well as Heisman hopes.

LSU, of course, boasts two of the past six Heisman winners in Joe Burrow (2019) and Jayden Daniels (2024). Clemson is still seeking its first.

A day later on the final Sunday without NFL football for about five months, No. 6 Notre Dame will play at No. 10 Miami, a pair of Heisman-tradition-rich programs looking to end national title and Heisman-winning droughts.

Miami will field new QB and Georgia transfer Carson Beck at quarterback while Notre Dame will be led by redshirt freshman CJ Carr, the grandson of former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr. 

Beck’s name is not new to Heisman talk, although his uniform will be. And any QB at Notre Dame will have instant Heisman chatter if they start leading the Irish to a bunch of wins.

These are but a fraction of the Heisman hopefuls in action this week and as always, the unexpected performances and names from each weekend’s games are as much fun as seeing what the entrenched Heisman contenders have done, making the Heisman race a one-of-a-kind American tradition.