Heisman Eve: Making a Case for Travis Hunter & Ashton Jeanty

We are nearing the end of one of the best Heisman Trophy races college football has ever seen. While betting odds have pointed towards Travis Hunter being the heavy favorite throughout the past month, many are still holding out hope that Ashton Jeanty could be in contention for the hardware this weekend.

Unsurprisingly, many are backing Jeanty to be the next in line for college football’s most prestigious individual award. The Boise State back racked up 344 carries for 2,497 rushing yards and 29 rushing touchdowns, all three marks ending the season as the most in the FBS while finishing the year with the fourth-most rushing yards in a season in FBS history. He attests it to the team’s practices and his hard work when it isn’t game day.

“It comes from practice and from how we work and train," said Jeanty. “From the beginning of the spring all the way into the summer with hard-fought camp practices. It’s gotta be harder than it’s gonna be on game day for when game day comes. Everybody says it looks easy out there for me, but that’s because of the work that I put in."

A common attack on Jeanty’s case for the historic award is that he is at a school like Boise State that hails out of the Mountain West and doesn’t typically face the highest level of FBS competition. That argument is easily thwarted by pointing toward his performance against #1 Oregon back in September, when he rushed for 192 yards and three touchdowns while averaging 7.7 yards per carry. Jeanty doesn’t find much merit to the argument himself.

“All of us got recruited to play at the Division I level," said Jeanty. “That means we’re all exceptionally great players. For people to downgrade different conferences, I feel like those people don’t have much knowledge of football. No disrespect."

As for Travis Hunter, he understands that what he is doing is not only unique, but it may pave the way for the future of college football. Not only will players be more willing to enter the collegiate level as two-way prospects, but head coaches may be more willing to allow players to be regular starters on both offense and defense, even at the power conference level.

“I think I laid the ground for people to come in and go two ways," said Hunter. “I’m a hard worker. I try to help out the younger guys coming in and show them that I’m going to work hard every day and lead the way for them."

The unicorn angle is the best one that Hunter has on his path to becoming the next Heisman winner. We have simply never seen anything like this before. Hunter played 1,380 total snaps per ESPN – 670 on offense, 686 on defense, and 24 on special teams – across 12 games this season. It’s nearly 400 snaps more than the next-closest player at the FBS level, giving him the most considerable workload by a mile in the sport this season. And on a personal level, Hunter realizes what winning the Heisman would mean to him.

“It just goes to show that I did what I had to, " Hunter stated. “Showing everybody that is the main thing. I worked so hard for this moment. To secure the Heisman would really set the legacy for me."

The ultimate debate here is versatility vs. dominance. It’s perhaps the most compelling Heisman Trophy race we have ever had, and it’s hard to imagine that one of these players will have to go home empty-handed. Will the Heisman Trophy committee side with Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty and his sheer dominance at one position, displaying video game numbers every time he steps on the field? Or will they go with the Swiss Army knife in Colorado’s Travis Hunter, who has found a way to impact the game on both sides of the ball in ways we have never seen at the collegiate level?

We’ll all have to tune in on Saturday night to find out.