College football teams are guaranteed at least one more game this season, and the top contenders for the Heisman Trophy had better make good use of Week 14. The rivalry games that ensue this weekend will sort out which teams play for conference supremacy, which squads can expect to play in the College Football Playoff and which players have the best shot of earning an invitation to a prestigious award ceremony in New York.
In The Game, Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin leads the No. 1-ranked Buckeyes into battle against a No. 15 Michigan team that has had their number for four years. In the Lone Star Showdown, Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed seeks revenge on No. 16 Texas when he guides the No. 3 Aggies into an in-state clash. And those are just two of the mouth-watering matchups that headline a stacked rivalry week slate.
Résumé-building wins are at stake, and for many of the Heisman hopefuls, a win this week means they will have one more opportunity in conference championship games to impress voters and stake their claim to the sport’s highest honor.
Here is the full Heisman Trophy outlook for the final week of the college football regular season.
Heisman Trophy odds entering Week 14
Odds via FanDuel
Stock up: Jeremiyah Love reaches new heights
Jeremiyah Love already had a strong case to be a Heisman finalist, but after his latest explosion, he might just be in the mix to win the whole thing. As part of No. 9 Notre Dame’s greatest scoring output in modern program history, Love needed just eight carries to amass 171 yards and three touchdowns in a 70-7 obliteration of Syracuse. That’s right — Love averaged a whopping 21.4 yards per touch for the game.
Love’s candidacy is somewhat quiet, likely because Notre Dame has been mostly out of the national spotlight for the last month. But while the Fighting Irish lacked schedule strength in the latter half of the campaign, Love rose to the occasion in his team’s biggest spots. Try 265 scrimmage yards against No. 17 USC on for size. Or perhaps 167 total yards against No. 22 Pittsburgh. The Notre Dame running back has been simply unstoppable since the calendar flipped to October, and so to have the Fighting Irish.
The numbers are eye-catching, but what truly sets Love apart from other running backs is the dazzling plays he makes to accrue those yards. Few players in the sport have his ability to make defenders miss, and that is clear when he hurdles over would-be tacklers or stiff-arms them to the ground.
That Notre Dame will be inactive during conference championship week hurts Love’s ability to make a last-minute statement to Heisman voters, so instead, he needs another monster game on Saturday against Stanford.
Stock down: SEC scheduling hurts Gunner Stockton, Ty Simpson
From a Heisman perspective, the SEC takes a risk with its late-season buy games. On one hand, they give stars an opportunity to pad their stats. On the other hand, they are no-win contests with fewer eyes on them than conference games. And for Gunner Stockton and Ty Simpson, last week’s wins over Charlotte and Eastern Illinois, respectively, did nothing to help them improve their individual stock.
The No. 4 Georgia and No. 10 Alabama quarterbacks combined for one touchdown and three interceptions in the victories. Their teams won comfortably, but they did so by simply being vastly more talented across the board than their overmatched opponents.
If they had a few more regular-season games ahead of them or — like players in other conferences — had a full league slate left to play after their FCS or Group of Six wins, this data point would be an afterthought at the voting deadline. Instead, it is fresh in everyone’s minds and zaps them of their momentum with just one or two chances to get right.
There is a lot of disappointment at Georgia Tech after a second loss in three weeks all but dashed the No. 23 Yellow Jackets’ ACC championship and CFP hopes. Haynes King was not particularly sharp in the loss to Pittsburgh and threw two interceptions in what ended up as a two-possession game. His dark horse Heisman hopes took a major hit as a result.
But what if King rebounds this week? What if he leads the Yellow Jackets to an upset win over Georgia? After all, he took the Bulldogs to eight overtimes a year ago, scoring five touchdowns in the process. It would take another Herculean individual effort to scare or defeat the Bulldogs this time around, and if it comes to fruition, the season-long numbers and achievements could be strong enough to get King to New York.
Week 14 performances to watch
Rivalry week will never lack pageantry, nor will it ever be light on Heisman implications. A slate packed with top-25 matchups offers the potential this year for true CFP chaos and for the nation’s best players to shine on the biggest stages. But rivalry games also deliver surprises every year, and nobody is ever safe from an untimely loss.
Julian Sayin vs. No. 15 Michigan
Just ask Ohio State what can happen when things go wrong in rivalry week. Julian Sayin saw firsthand last season what not to do against Michigan. If he can be the quarterback that snaps the four-game losing streak to the Wolverines, he will punch a ticket to the Big Ten title game and all but lock up a spot at the Heisman ceremony. It would behoove the Buckeyes to let Sayin do his thing, dial up passing plays to their star receivers and forget about proving their toughness by leaning too heavily on the run game.
Marcel Reed vs. No. 16 Texas
The first time Marcel Reed saw a Texas defense, he threw an interception in his most inefficient start to date: a seven-point outing in the 2024 regular-season finale. The Longhorns are stout defensively again this year, but something has been off as they allowed at least 31 points in each of their last four contests. Between that trend and their lack of a path to the playoff, they might not have the juice to stop Reed and the Aggies.
Diego Pavia vs. No. 19 Tennessee
Should Diego Pavia be the Heisman frontrunner? There is an argument to be made in his favor. He is arguably more important to Vanderbilt’s success than any player is to their respective team. The problem for the Commodores is that their three previous wins over ranked opponents did not age well. Defeating Tennessee would be a more legitimate accomplishment than beating South Carolina, LSU or Missouri, and it may be the kind of win that puts Pavia in the Heisman driver’s seat.
Gunner Stockton vs. Haynes King
Stockton had not yet become Georgia’s starter when the Bulldogs nearly lost to Georgia Tech a year ago, so this will be his first taste of the rivalry not from the sideline. King, meanwhile, has already proven capable of torching his rival. While neither team has any control over their conference destinies with this non-league showdown, they still have plenty to play for in the CFP race and Heisman context.
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