Tua Tagovailoa’s gonna win one of the weirdest Heisman races ever

Tua Tagovailoa’s going to be your Heisman Trophy winner. You know it, and I do too.

Unless he gets hurt or the Tide do what is almost literally unthinkable and crash to 10-2 or something, he’ll be victorious in New York next month. He’s the most outstanding player on one of the two best teams in college football, and he’ll probably run away with the voting too.

The question for Tagovailoa is going to be how much his margin of victory ends up being, in all likelihood.

Troy Smith won the Heisman with 91.63 percent of the possible points. It’s a record that still stands, even though Marcus Mariota got close a few years ago — and he did beat Smith on percentage of points from those who actually voted (95.16). Tagovailoa could get the total vote record too, but it’s a little tougher for him because OJ Simpson got 855 votes with a much bigger pool of voters. Smith is in second place there with 801 in 2006.

The Heisman has become more of a runaway race when there’s a standout QB. Of the 12 highest percentage victories in the history of the award, six of them have come in the last 12 years, and all six wins have been by quarterbacks.

Through nine games, Tagovailoa’s at 194 passing attempts, 21.5 per game. If you go on pure box score stuff, Tagovailoa’s going to come in on the low end of attempts per game if he stays on this pace. He won’t crack the high end of yards per game either, but when you consider the fact that Alabama doesn’t use him as much of a running threat his total touches per-game aren’t close to the Heisman winners who have come before him either.

Here is how he stacks up against Heisman winners since 2000 in those:

But context matters when you talk about the Heisman, and this is where I remind you Tagovailoa has only played in one fourth quarter all season because Alabama’s always ahead, and Jalen Hurts is capable enough to get the job done in his stead when the Tide are up 40.

Assuming Tagovailoa is needed for the entire time against Auburn and Georgia, that’d still be only three times this season in which he’s played a full game by Heisman time.

Going by passer rating, he topped the best six games by the last eight Heisman QBs weeks ago.

Here are those same QBs by yards per attempt, completion percentage, and passer rating:

Even if Tagovailoa’s numbers tail off a bit and come back down to Earth, he’ll still be comfortably in the range of Heisman QB numbers, doing much more with fewer bites at the apple.

Kyler Murray’s probably the best example, but Will Grier, Dwayne Haskins, or even Mckenzie Milton could fit too.

They’re all going to finish second at best. ESPN’s Week 10 Heisman poll surveyed 10 of its writers. All 10 voted Tagovailoa first and Murray second. What Murray’s doing is special, but he’s doing it on not this-year’s Alabama, so he’s not going to win unless Tagovailoa gets hurt, just like Tim Tebow wouldn’t have won the Heisman without Dennis Dixon’s injury in 2007.

Through nine games, Murray’s been lighting up stat sheets with Heisman-worthy numbers through the air and added 574 yards on the ground with seven touchdowns and plenty of highlight-reel plays. Murray’s more of the modern Heisman-winning QB mold as an exceptional running quarterback on an elite team averaging 33.3 touches per game. But Tagovailoa’s in the mix this year, and that’s changed things.

Murray’s passer rating is so-far barely better than Tagovailoa’s, he’s also got more touchdowns and a better completion rating. Alabama’s faced better defenses than Oklahoma, but that’s not really factored into Heisman voting tendencies the way it would be for ranking whole teams.

Tagovailoa’s margin will also be helped by the fact that there isn’t really a star running back this year. There are certainly good ones, but Jonathan Taylor’s on a Wisconsin team that won’t make the Playoff and Clemson’s Travis Etienne has been really impressive, but not enough to challenge Tagovailoa.

There’s no real blueprint besides being a really good offensive skill player — and probably a quarterback — on an elite team. So far, Tagovailoa fits that mold.

He’ll be a different Heisman winner in a different Heisman race, but make no mistake: he will be the winner.