2025 Heisman Watch: Fernando Mendoza and John Mateer are Early Leaders

We’re now four weeks into the college football season, so we thought now would be a good time to check in on the Heisman Trophy race. Below are my thoughts on the current oddsboard, courtesy of FanDuel.

2025 Heisman Trophy Watch

1. Fernando Mendoza (Indiana): +800

We have a new Heisman frontrunner.

Mendoza was great the first three games against cupcakes. This past Saturday night was Mendoza’s national coming-out party, with a five-TD performance in a 63-10 beatdown of ninth-ranked Illinois.

Mendoza is completing 76.8% of his passes for an absurd 14/0 TD/INT rate. Mendoza has three difficult road games left on the schedule, beginning this weekend at Iowa. A trip to Eugene following a bye comes after that.

This week is not the right time to bet Mendoza for this award, now that his price has surged—unless you believe that the Hoosiers will beat both Iowa and Oregon on the road.

If you want a Mendoza ticket, my suggestion would be to buy it after the Oregon game on Oct. 11. If Indiana loses that one, Mendoza’s price will almost assuredly be better at that time than you can get today.

2. John Mateer (Oklahoma): +900

Last week, Mateer was No. 2 on the Heisman board behind Carson Beck. Mateer remains No. 2 this week, with a new frontrunner ahead of him.

This past weekend, Mateer guided Oklahoma to a 4-0 start with a 23-16 win over No. 22 Auburn. At one point in the second half, Mateer completed 11-straight passes (he finished 24-of-36 passing for 271 yards).

Mateer already has two wins over ranked opponents, and he’s got six more ranked opponents on the schedule going forward to continue adding to his resume. After Oklahoma beats Kent State next, the Sooners would need to go 5-2 or better to reach the CFP (10-2 out of the SEC is a lock).

If that happens—and I think there’s a decent chance so long as Mateer stays healthy—it’s going to be hard not to give him the award. The stats are going to be there—Mateer is a dual-threat quarterback in a high-tempo, explosive system—and the improvements to Oklahoma’s record and offensive output will help to make the argument for him.

T-3. Dante Moore (Oregon) | Jeremiah Smith (Ohio State): +1200

Dante Moore’s surge up the Heisman board continued over the weekend with a career-high four TD passes in a blowout win over Oregon State. He went 21-of-31 passing for 305 yards, and added 53 yards rushing.

The Ducks are now 4-0, and Moore ranks No. 6 among FBS quarterbacks in PFF grade. If you like Moore, now is probably the time to buy your ticket. The next two games, Oregon plays at Penn State and hosts Indiana. If the Ducks win both, Moore’s price could be slashed in half.

For whatever it’s worth, Moore has looked tremendous as a thrower in the tape I’ve seen. Oregon hasn’t really played anyone yet, granted. But that’s also the reason Moore’s price is still reasonable. Moore is potentially worth a nibble at this price if you don’t have him in your portfolio yet.

Ohio State's Jeremiah Smith has posted a 20-315-3 receiving line through three games. That is not going to be good enough to get it done.

Since 1988, only one pure receiver has won the award—Alabama’s DeVonta Smith in 2020. We had an odd confluence of factors that year that are not repeatable: 1) Most teams did not play full seasons due to COVID, so several quarterbacks were not able to accrue normal counting stats, 2) No quarterback outside of Smith’s own (Mac Jones) had a monster quasi-full-season output worthy of the award, 3) Voters agreed that Smith was a bigger driving force of Alabama’s passing offense than Jones, who ultimately finished No. 3 (Trevor Lawrence finished No. 2 but didn’t have the stats for even that spot).

DeVonta Smith posted a 117-1,856-23 receiving line in 2020 to win the award. Jeremiah Smith is currently on a 13-game pace of 87-1365-13.

To win the Heisman, Jeremiah Smith would need to have a statistically absurd final 10 games of the season—not missing any time, and not having any down statistical games—while hoping the remaining non-Ohio State quarterbacks in the field cannibalize themselves one-by-one, leaving voters with a “Jeremiah Smith or Julian Sayin” debate.

I don’t see that as realistic—spend your money elsewhere.

5. Carson Beck (Miami): +1300

Beck falls from No. 1 on the Heisman board to No. 5 despite Miami improving to 4-0 with a 26-7 win over Florida. That’s because Beck struggled in that game, going 17-for-30 for 153 total yards, with zero TD and one interception.

In my opinion, his price is still too high. Beck has a modest 5/3 TD/INT rate in three games against FBS opponents. He averaged a mere 182.5 YPG passing in the two games against P4 opponents.

Miami is the clear ACC favorite, and seems destined to qualify for the CFP after last year’s near-miss. But even if the Hurricanes are the 13-0 ACC champions when Heisman ballots are due, I’m dubious that Beck’s passing stats will be good enough to make a compelling argument.

They need to be unimpeachable, because Beck offers nothing as a runner, and because they will be compared apples-to-apples with Cam Ward’s from the previous season. I don’t like Beck’s chances.

Rest of the board…

Gunner Stockton (Georgia): +1400
Josh Hoover (TCU): +1400
Joey Aguilar (Tennessee): +1700
Marcel Reed (Texas A&M):+1700
Julian Sayin (Ohio State): +1700
Thomas Castellanos (Florida State): +2000
Garrett Nussmeier (LSU): +2000
Jayden Maiava (USC): +2000
Drew Allar (Penn State): +2500
Haynes King (Georgia Tech): +2500
Ty Simpson (Alabama): +2500
Beau Pribula (Missouri): +3000
Diego Pavia (Vanderbilt): +3500
Jackson Arnold (Auburn): +4000
Sam Leavitt (Arizona State): +4000
Dylan Raiola (Nebraska): +5000
Demond Williams Jr. (Washington): +5000
Bryce Underwood (Michigan): +5000
Behren Morton (Texas Tech): +5000
Trinidad Chambliss (Ole Miss): +5000

Longshots worth a beer-money bet: USC QB Maiava (+2000) and Washington QB Williams (+5000)

If the past 40 years of Heisman voting has taught us anything when gauging the current market, it’s that the winner will almost assuredly be the starting quarterback for a CFP qualifier—from there, we’ll get a comparison of counting stats against perceived strength of schedule.

We do not have a two-way superstar to steal the award this year, as happened twice during that timespan (Charles Woodson and Travis Hunter). And as outlined above, it’s going to take Jeremiah Smith burning college football to the ground for the next 40 quarters while unforeseen circumstances unfold around him in order for a non-QB to steal the award this year.

Focusing on our Occam’s Razor criteria, I think Maiava and Williams are the two best values on the board currently. USC and Washington are both undefeated, and both run quarterback-friendly offensive systems that put points on the board.

Should either the Trojans or Huskies surprise by qualifying for the CFP, you’d expect their quarterback to get an invite to New York. Maiava is averaging over 300 YPG passing with a 9/0 TD/INT rate. The dual-threat Williams has 998 total yards in three games, with 8 total TD and zero INT.

USC is a 7.5-point road favorite over ranked Illinois this weekend. Washington is a 9.5-point home underdog to Ohio State. Both games are huge for the respective resumes of our sleeper Heisman quarterbacks.

If you like the Trojans to hold serve, Maiava’s 20-to-1 Heisman ticket is worth buying right now—the price won’t be better next week. And if you think the Huskies have any shot whatsoever of upsetting the Buckeyes, it would be advisable to have a 50-to-1 Williams ticket in your pocket.

For whatever it’s worth, Washington was my preseason deep-sleeper darkhorse CFP pick. After the Ohio State game, the Huskies have only one other game against a top-18 opponent (home against Oregon in the finale).

I also considered Penn State’s Allar and Florida State’s Castellanos, but I don’t think the individual stats will be good enough for either, even if their teams have the regular-season success to get them into the conversation.