The Heisman Buzz Entering Thanksgiving Weekend

Two weekends of play remain for teams jockeying for conference championship berths, CFP playoff spots and rivalry bragging rights.

And for the leading candidates for the Heisman Trophy, there are just one, maybe two more chances to make their cases to the almost 1,000 voters who decide on the most prestigious award in college football.

Heading into Thanksgiving weekend, the college football punditry class, which makes up just over 90% of the Heisman voters, reports a tight race for the trophy and a mix of predictions for which four players will earn a trip to New York as finalists.

So let’s take out our sharpest knife and carve into the juiciest Heisman storylines.

The Athletic and its Heisman 25-member straw poll has Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza will a solid first-place lead, earning 17 first-place and six second-place votes. Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love has jumped into second with 37 points, including three first-place and 10 second-place votes while Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia leaped into third with five first-place votes.

Ohio State QB Julian Sayin was fourth, Texas Tech linebacker David Bailey was fifth and Buckeye wide receiver Jeremiah Smith was sixth.

Mendoza and Sayin are headed to a clash in the Big Ten Conference Championship game if the Hoosiers and Buckeyes take care of business this weekend in what could be a massive Heisman campaign platform.

Mendoza was off last week while Sayin threw for 157 yards and two scores as the Buckeyes romped over Rutgers to match Indiana’s 11-0 record.

Sayin and Mendoza are 1-2 in national passer rating and 1-3 in completion percentage. Sayin has 27 TDs and four interceptions while Mendoza has 30 TDs and five picks.

Notre Dame savaged Syracuse on Saturday, 70-7, thanks in large part to Love’s 171 yards and three touchdowns on just eight carries. Love is third nationally in yards per game (118.73) and rushing scores (17) and 14th in yards per carry (7.06). He is first in yards per carry for any back with over 140 carries on the year.

Pavia, meanwhile, is coming off a massive performance while leading the Commodores to a 45-17 win over Kentucky as they stayed in CFP contention at 9-2. Pavia completed 33-of-39 passes for 484 yards and five touchdowns while also rushing for 48 yards and scoring once on the ground.

Per The Athletic: “The wild cards in this equation: Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love and Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia, both of whom posted huge numbers Saturday in making their penultimate statements.

“Love and the Irish play Saturday night at Stanford. Pavia and the Commodores visit Tennessee. They’ll try to do enough on Thanksgiving weekend so that if championship weekend falls flat for Mendoza and Sayin, Love or Pavia could secure the trophy.”

The on3.com staff poll shows a tighter race with Mendoza, Pavia, Love and Sayin in the top 4 spots while Texas A&M QB Marcel Reed is fifth with Alabama QB Ty Simpson sixth. Georgia QB Gunner Stockton was seventh and Oregon QB Dante Moore, fresh off a big win over USC, was eighth.

Said On3 on Love: “The focus in the race has been on the quarterbacks, but arguably nobody is hotter than Love. He has scored a touchdown in each of his games since the season opener, while he has recorded multiple touchdowns in three of the last four games.”

Reed led the Aggies to a blowout of Samford. He now has 2,752 yards passing and 25 scores while also rushing for six TDs. Simpson and Alabama were also in blowout mode, taking out Eastern Illinois. He has 2,934 yards passing 22 scores.

Bleacher Report listed Mendoza a clear cut first with Sayin second and Love third. Sayin is set to lead the Buckeyes against Michigan, to which Bleacher Report suggested: “If he performs well as the Buckeyes snap their four-game skid to U-M, be ready for a wave of perfectly timed praise for Sayin.”

ESPN’s Pamela Maldonado had this to say on Love’s late-season ride up the Heisman rankings: “The biggest jump this week — probably of the season — was Love’s after back-to-back triple-yardage games. Love has now rushed for 100-plus yards in six games this season, including 228 against USC. On paper, the surges make sense. The production is luscious, the highlight runs pop, and Notre Dame keeps winning by margins. This move says more about the other candidates than it does about Love suddenly becoming a real Heisman threat.”

Sports Illustrated’s latest rankings had Mendoza and Love at 1-2 with Sayin and Pavia at 3-4. Texas Tech LB Jacob Rodriguez was fifth.

They had this to say on Mendoza’s candidacy: “Mendoza is tied for the most touchdown throws in the nation (30) with Baylor’s Sawyer Robertson, but the latter threw two interceptions in a blowout loss to Arizona Saturday. IU’s QB has accounted for 35 touchdowns in total to just five picks as he’s taken the Hoosiers to new heights after a College Football Playoff appearance last year. As one of the best stories across college football this season, Mendoza’s efficiency and dazzling play makes him a top choice to become this year’s Heisman winner.”

Athlon Sports’ rankings looked similar to the rest with the exception of Reed rising to third. They listed Mendoza first with Sayin second, Pavia fourth and Love fifth.

Fox Sports’ resident Heisman expert/winner Robert Griffin III is listing Rodriguez first among his Heisman top 8 with Love second, Reed third and Mendoza fourth.

NBC’s Nicole Auerbach said this on Love’s Heisman resume: “Love deserves serious consideration to win the Heisman Trophy outright, but at a bare minimum I hope that he’ll be a finalist. There have not been three better players in college football this season than this Notre Dame running back. There may not be any current college football players better than Love, if we’re being completely honest.

“Still, this is going to be an uphill battle for Love. The conversation surrounding the Heisman Trophy this season has been almost exclusively focused on quarterbacks. Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza is the current frontrunner, but Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin is just behind him. They’ll likely square off in the Big Ten title game in two weeks, so that could — and maybe should — ultimately decide the Heisman winner. That is a totally defensible approach to a race that still feels fairly wide open. But I hope my fellow voters don’t forget about the running back that won’t be playing during conference championship weekend.”