It’s been 10 years since a running back has won the most prestigious award in college football. The Heisman Trophy is awarded annually to the most “outstanding player” in college football but running backs have become more and more absent in recent years on the list of the award’s winners.
Since 2000, just three running backs have taken home the Heisman. Alabama’s Derrick Henry was the last back to win it in 2015. Another Crimson Tide running back, Mark Ingram, won it in 2009 and Southern Cal’s Reggie Bush won his Heisman in 2005.
Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love is still a longshot to win the award this season, but every week he does his best to remind the college football world just why he is worthy.
“He’s as special of a football player as I’ve been around,” Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said of Love. “Every time he has the ball in his hands, he can make something positive happen. He is as dangerous of an offensive weapon that I’ve probably been around. That’s the value I see in him for our team is you can put him at wideout, you can motion him from the backfield, you can throw him the ball, you can hand him the ball and he’s going to make something happen.”
He is tied for the FBS lead with 16 total touchdowns this season. He ranks second in the nation in scoring (10.7 ppg), third in rushing touchdowns (13), fourth in all-purpose yards per game (138.00), fourth in total points scored (96), fifth in rushing yards (988), and sixth in rushing yards per game (109.8).
In spite of his prodigious list of achievements this season, Love’s Heisman odds have remained relatively stagnant. With three games to go in the regular season, Fan Duel Sportsbook currently gives Love the eighth-best odds to win the award this season. Six quarterbacks and Ohio State wide receiver all have better odds as the college football season comes into the home stretch.
The oddsmakers might have Love as a longshot, but Freeman believes the junior is a true Heisman candidate.
“In my mind yes, he is,” Freeman remarked. “There is no question about it. You talk about one of the best players in the country, if he's not one of them, then, you know, it's hard to believe how many other players are that special. He's a special player and he had a great week of prep and, again, continues to do things that you haven't seen but things you know -- you're not surprised with Jeremiyah Love.”
The list of Heisman winners was once dominated by running backs. From 1973-1983 10 backs combined to win 11 consecutive Heismans. That includes the only two-time winner of the award, Archie Griffin, in both ‘74 and ‘75.
Things began to shift in the ‘90s as quarterbacks, including BYU’s Ty Detmer who won the Heisman in 1990 in spite of leading the nation with 28 interceptions, began to win the award more frequently. Ricky Williams of Texas and Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne were the last two running backs to win the award in consecutive years in 1998 and 1999.
Beginning with Chris Weinke in 2000, four straight quarterbacks won the Heisman. That run began a trend that has seen 19 quarterbacks take home the Heisman hardware this century.
Love’s 988 rushing yards rank him No. 5 in the nation. He is just 449 yards from tying Vagas Ferguson’s Notre Dame single-season rushing record of 1,437 yards. He has 28 explosive runs of 10+ yards this season as well, exceeding his total of 24 such runs last season.
Love winning a Heisman Trophy would be icing on the cake for a running back who is the engine for a team that has its sights set on a second consecutive College Football Playoff appearance.
“It’s a great award,” Freeman commented. “It’s a huge honor and somebody’s going to win it. I don’t know. But I think Jeremiyah Love would be the first to tell you that winning a game is way more important than that individual award. He’s going to do everything in his power to make sure that we prepare to win a game and if the Heisman Trophy comes with it, then great, that’s amazing.”
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