This year’s Heisman Trophy race is unique in recent memory, which is already evident when you see a two-way player and a Group of Five running back vying for the award.

Even beyond Colorado’s Travis Hunter and Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty, the ballot is full of great stories. Miami QB Cam Ward began his career at the FCS level, as did Arizona State RB Cam Skattebo.

Oregon’s QB Dillon Gabriel is attending his third school, while Colorado’s QB Shedeur Sanders is the son of an NFL legend (college football fans may recognize the name). Penn State’s Tyler Warren, meanwhile, is a tight end. That alone is a rarity in the Heisman conversation.

Each participant has a story, but one has excelled each week. He deserves the award more than anyone else.

The case here is that Jeanty will be the 2024 Heisman Trophy winner.

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Ashton Jeanty’s Heisman resume

• 2,497 rushing yards
• 7.3 yards per carry
• 30 total touchdowns
• 192.1 yards per game
• No games under 125 rushing yards
• 192 yards, 3 touchdowns against undefeated Oregon
• Boise State’s first appearance in the College Football Playoff

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Why Ashton Jeanty should win the Heisman Trophy

Before 2022, it was fairly rare for a player from a team with multiple losses to win the Heisman Trophy. Robert Griffin III and Lamar Jackson were among those who defied the odds, but the scenario wasn’t commonplace. Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels both debunked the narrative that a player has to be on an elite team to win the award, winning with a combined five losses.

That’s a good change, to be clear. The Heisman Trophy should go to the most outstanding player and have nothing to do with the players around him. If you have a player who has posted eye-popping numbers And Even though he took his team to the highest level of the sport, it sounds a lot like what the Heisman Trophy should reward.

Jeanty did both. Not only did he destroy the defense, but he literally made the difference for Boise State. No one who watched the Broncos play could tell you that they would be a College Football Playoff team without Jeanty in the backfield. When he missed an action against Wyoming in late November, it looked as if the local high school team would don Boise State’s royal blue helmets and take the field.

Opposing defenses routinely managed to corner Jeanty, and he managed to overcome him every time. On his way to 2,497 yards, fourth in FBS history going into his first playoff game, Jeanty never had a single game with fewer than 127 rushing yards.

For Jeanty, there was no slip, no dud and certainly no 17-yard play. He brought it every week and the result was one of the most statistically dominant offensive seasons in college football history.

The last running back to win the Heisman Trophy, Derrick Henry, had five games with fewer than 100 rushing yards. He also averaged 5.6 yards per carry while Jeanty averaged 7.3 yards per carry. A running back shouldn’t be perfect to win the Heisman, but Jeanty was pretty close.

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Of course, Jeanty didn’t face an SEC schedule like Henry did. The Mountain West is not the same as the SEC, and it goes without saying that 2,497 yards in the modern SEC would arguably be the best season ever. For this reason, Henry’s 2,219 yards in 15 games can rightly be considered more impressive than Jeanty’s 2,497 yards in 13 games.

However, the idea that Jeanty couldn’t compete against top competition is ridiculous. He ran for 192 yards and three touchdowns in a narrow loss to unbeaten Oregon, beating a defense that held Ohio State’s Quinshon Judkins to 23 yards on 11 carries and Michigan’s duo of Kalel Mullings and Donovan Edwards to 68 yards on 18 carries. Jeanty faced the best rushing defense in the Mountain West, UNLV, and ran for 208 yards and a touchdown with the championship on the line.

When other teams increased their defenses with the sole intention of limiting Jeanty, he still found a way to defeat them. That’s what the big ones do.

If a season like his was easy in the Mountain West, no other running back in the conference was told. In fact, no one in the entire Group of Five said anything about a running back. Jeanty finished 893 yards ahead of the second-highest rushing player in a Group of Five conference and an impressive 1,223 yards ahead of the second-highest rushing player in the Mountain West – 1,223 yards would be a solid season in itself.

Believing Jeanty should win the Heisman Trophy doesn’t mean Hunter didn’t have an outstanding season. He definitely made it and he should be celebrated for it. Being unique doesn’t mean being the most outstanding player.

Scoring 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns through the air won’t win anyone the Heisman. A good, solid defensive season with four interceptions won’t win anyone the Heisman. Admittedly, put them together and you have someone who can potentially win college football’s most coveted award — But not when another player does what Jeanty does and leads his team to the College Football Playoff.

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The sport may not see Hunter’s two-way star again for a long time, but it would be hard to argue that if he and Jeanty swapped jerseys, it would be enough to keep Boise State at 12-1. Instead, Colorado took a 9-3 lead. Blaming it on Hunter wouldn’t be fair, but in a tight race, it’s entirely fair to give the player the edge that could be the difference between his team securing a playoff spot or going to the Alamo Bowl .

If the projections and predictions are to be believed, Hunter will become Colorado’s first Heisman Trophy winner in 30 years on Saturday. It’s hard to say he doesn’t deserve it. It was a unique race and two players made history in more ways than one. However, if the award is to go to the most outstanding player, it should go to the player who set new standards in one position, not the player who did a good job at two of them.