The Heisman of the Week is a totally serious column in which we dissect the performances of literally thousands of college football players to tell you which ones deserve the Heisman Trophy mostly based on just this last week of competition ... and which players are actually setting themselves up for contention for the thing. (They’re not always the same.)
Florida State is running Dalvin Cook into Heisman contention
Plus, a MAC quarterback on pace to beat the FBS passing record.
Glenn Beil-USA TODAY Sports
Heisman of the Week: Matt Johnson, Bowling Green
Adjust players' performances for context, and there hasn't been a more impressive player nationally so far than Johnson, the Falcons' senior signal caller. He wins Week 2's Heisman of the Week after triggering Bowling Green's 48-27 bombardment of Maryland with 491 yards and six touchdowns — better numbers than J.T. Barrett put up in any single game while laying waste to the Big Ten in 2014, and better than Jameis Winston's 393 yards and five touchdowns against Maryland in 2013.
Johnson leads the nation in passing yards, with 915 (no other QB has even 800), and is one behind Baylor quarterback Seth Russell’s nine touchdown passes. He has no shot whatsoever to win the Heisman, unless his numbers remain extraordinary, and it’s a good bet that they won’t. But, assuming the Falcons play at least 13 games, Johnson’s on pace to throw for 5,947 yards in 2015, which would break the record for single-season passing yards held by Texas Tech QB B.J. Symons, who threw for 5,833 in 2003.
Heisman Hopeful of the Week: Dalvin Cook, Florida State
Cook ran for 266 yards and three touchdowns against USF on Saturday, notching the second-best performance by a runner in Seminoles history. He’s also capable of the sort of long, weaving touchdown runs that recall Reggie Bush, the last player in the explosive running back mold to win the Heisman.
Cook, though, might be able to hybridize the profiles of Bush and Alabama running back Mark Ingram, who won as a workhorse in 2009 thanks to a relatively weak field. Florida State's offense has looked pedestrian when Cook is not getting touches, and he's seventh nationally with 49 carries despite the Seminoles playing two relatively easy non-conference games to begin the season. If Jimbo Fisher rides Cook through ACC play, his numbers could be staggering — and he's already second nationally in rushing yards and the only player with more than 40 carries and an average gain of 7.5 yards or better.
Ha-Hasman of the Week: Tanner Mangum, BYU
Prediction: If Mangum wins all 12 of BYU’s games via Hail Mary, he will go to New York. Sure, he’s only thrown for 420 yards this season, and has as many interceptions as he does completely unfathomable rescues of the Cougars! He’s clearly a player of destiny, though, and should be regarded as such.
He Can't Win The Heisman of the Week: The Whole Dang Boston College Eagles Roster
For the better part of a decade, I have pored over box scores from the Division I level to the Division III level on Sundays, more because I am a boring person who enjoys minutiae than for any good reason. I cannot remember one more overwhelming than the one from Boston College’s 76-0 obliteration of Howard on Saturday.
The Eagles allowed 11 yards of total offense on 40 plays. The 2011 Alabama defense, perhaps the greatest in college football history, allowed 90 yards of total offense in its best game. They scored three touchdowns in the game’s first five minutes, and rolled up 483 yards on 55 plays despite taking their foot so far off the gas in the abbreviated second half — which consisted of two 10-minute quarters — that they somehow ran a five-play drive ending in a punt that ate up eight minutes of game clock and included an incomplete pass. All but two Boston College drives, in fact, gained more yards than Howard did for the entire game, and the Eagles had 15 separate plays that out gained the Bison.
It was so lopsided that Steve Addazio’s team didn’t even screw up when it screwed up. Up 48-0 in the second quarter, the Eagles started a drive with a 22-yard loss that backed them up to their own 11 for a second-and-32. Two plays later, they had a first down in Howard territory. Two plays after that, the score was 54-0.
Howard, to be crystal clear, is very, very bad, ranked No. 241 of 253 teams in Jeff Sagarin’s ratings. However, this was as total an annihilation on a football field as any I know of, and Boston College deserves to be recognized for it.
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