With the 2023-24 athletic season over for Boise State, it’s time to turn our attention over to the 2024-25 season. With that, we look at 25 storylines to focus on for Boise State over the next year. Today, we look at Summer Storyline 5: How real is the Ashton Jeanty Heisman hype?
Boise State has the T-shirts out, so expect a full campaign to follow in the weeks before the football season begins.
You can’t blame a school for trying to promote one of its student athletes, but can Ashton Jeanty shock the college football world this fall? How real is the Heisman hype?
From the get-go, Jeanty has two factors working against him in his Heisman odds: His position and the name on the front of his jersey.
Since 2000, there have been 24 Heisman Trophies awarded; 20 have gone to quarterbacks. There have been three running backs in that span — Derek Henry, Mark Ingram and Reggie Bush — but all three of those backs played on teams that were National Championship contenders. Of all three, Ingram’s 1,992 all-purpose yards was the lowest total.
The second obstacle, the fact that Jeanty plays in the Mountain West and not one of the four power conferences. Fair or unfair, the Boise State name means he will likely have to work that much harder to attract Heisman voters.
The Heisman hasn’t been awarded outside one of the power conferences since 1990 when it was given to BYU’s Ty Detmer. And while players from conferences outside the power conferences have finished in the top five in voting 14 times since then, only San Diego State running back Marshall Faulk, in 1993, finished as runner-up.
If Jeanty has a strong season like last year — when he led the nation with 159.7 yards from scrimmage per game and was a first-team All-America selection by College Football News, ESPN and USA Today — getting votes certainly wouldn’t be unheard of. But to actually win the Heisman Trophy, Jeanty might have to put up stats that are unheard of.
The last Group of Five player to finish in the top five of voting was San Diego State running back Rashaad Penny, who ran for 2,248 yards in 2017, which ranks fifth-most all-time in FBS history.
Still, that was only good for fifth place in the voting.
In order to get the attention he needs to win the trophy, Jeanty may need to threaten Barry Sanders’ record of 2,628 rushing yards set in 1998, no easy task. Assuming Boise State plays in the Mountain West Championship Game and one bowl game or College Football Playoff game, he would need to average 187.7 rushing yards per game to do that. A huge game at Oregon on Sept. 7 could go a long way toward grabbing some eyeballs of voters for the rest of the season. Boise State would also likely need to make the College Football Playoff for Jeanty to have any shot at the award.
Perhaps the final indication of how far Jeanty has to climb is the Vegas odds for Heisman Trophy winner. As of mid-June, Draft Kings had 88 different players available to bet on, with odds going as low as +50000. Jeanty is not on the list. Boise State quarterback Malachi Nelson, who has yet to start a college game, is on that list with +25000 odds.
Of course, anything could happen between now and December when the Heisman is given out in New York’s Downtown Athletic Club. But for Jeanty, as long as there is team success, he will be happy with whatever awards do or don’t come from it.
“As a little kid, you always dream of things like that,” Jeanty said about the Heisman during the spring. “But I’m focused more on winning. If that comes along, it will come along with team success. It will take great play from other players to help me get there.”
Most Popular
Comments / 0