By Jordan Long
College football starts tonight when Hawaii plays the University of California in Sydney, Australia. Kickoff is at 8 PM Mountain Time. The biggest individual award after the season is the Heisman Trophy. There are four players to watch this year who could be the Heisman winner. They are Florida State Seminoles running back Dalvin Cook, LSU Tigers running back Leonard Fournette, Clemson Tigers quarterback DeShaun Watson, and Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey.
Dalvin Cook has been the Florida State running back the last two years. His first year, 2014, he ran for 1,008 yards and 8 touchdowns. His numbers were even better last year with 1,691 yards and 19 touchdowns. Cook’s average yard per rush was an outstanding 7.4 yards. This will be his junior season. He must have a remarkable season again. I think if he can run for the same number of yards, but add more touchdowns, he could end up with the award. The Florida State offensive line needs to create holes for him to run through. If they can’t, Cook might not have as many yards and his Heisman chances will be shot.
Leonard Fournette was the favorite to win the Heisman for most of the year last season. Prior to the Alabama game he had a total of 1,352 yards. I figured if he had a big game against Alabama, he would probably end up winning it. Unfortunately for him, Alabama shut him down to a season low 31 yards rushing. The next game against Arkansas wasn’t much better with 91 yards rushing. Those were the only two games he failed to rush for over 100 yards.
Fournette ended the season with 1,953 yards and 22 touchdowns. Those are decent numbers but he didn’t show up in the biggest games. The SEC is a tough conference and he will once again go up against Alabama and Arkansas. Those two games will be the difference for him this season. Fournette has to play well in those games and rush for over 100 yards because of how tough those defenses are. If he can, it could be his trophy to lose.
DeShaun Watson was third in the Heisman voting last year to Christian McCaffrey and Derrick Henry, who was the Heisman winner. Watson was outstanding, throwing for 4,104 yards and 35 touchdowns for Clemson. He protected the ball with only 13 interceptions thrown. There is no reason Watson can’t have a repeat performance. This will be his third year as the quarterback for Clemson and I am looking for him having even better numbers.
Christian McCaffrey enters his third year at Stanford. He was only a sophomore last season and had an amazing 2,019 yards on the ground and scored 8 touchdowns. He also could catch out of the backfield and was used in kick and punt returns. McCaffrey added 645 receiving yards. On special teams he had a total of 130 yards and one touchdown on punt returns and 1,070 yards on kickoffs with one touchdown. He was second in the Heisman voting and will continue to put up big numbers with Stanford. McCaffrey is my favorite to win the Heisman. If not for Derrick Henry’s big year, he would have won it. This year it is McCaffrey’s to win.
These are just a few of the players to watch for this year in college football. Time will tell who wins the Heisman Trophy.
Who do you think will win the Heisman Trophy?
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