The nation’s most prestigious award will likely be awarded to the quarterback who leads his team to a victory in the SEC Championship. The Florida Gators and Alabama Crimson Tide both punched their tickets to Atlanta after both teams clinched their respective divisions last Saturday. Both Kyle Trask and Mac Jones have had Heisman trophy worthy seasons to this point, but a big SEC Championship performance will likely sway undecided voters in one direction or the other.
The Kyle Trask case:
The redshirt senior from Manvel, Texas, started only his 19th game in college football last weekend. In those 19 starts, Trask has made one of the quickest ascensions to stardom in recent college football memory. For those who don’t follow the Gators, Trask stepped into the spotlight in Week 3 last season when Feleipe Franks suffered a season-ending ankle injury. Trask took the field down 11 points in the fourth quarter and led the Gators to a 29-21 win in Lexington over the Kentucky Wildcats.
So far on the season, Trask is second in the nation in passing yards, only behind Dillon Gabriel of UCF, with 3,243 yards this season. However, Trask leads the nation in passing touchdowns by a large margin. In the nine games this season, Trask has 38 passing touchdowns. The next closest is Gabriel with 30. Trask has also thrown no less than three touchdowns in a game, including six against both Ole Miss and Arkansas.
The Mac Jones Case:
Jones is a redshirt junior from Jacksonville, Florida, and has a very similar story to that of Trask. Jones took over after Tua Tagovailoa suffered a season-ending injury towards the end of last season. Jones started the final three games for Alabama last season and all nine games so far this season.
So far this season, Jones is second in passing efficiency in the nation with a 210.82 rating. He only trails Kaleb Eleby of Western Michigan in that category. Jones does trail Trask in both passing touchdowns and yards so far this season. He sits 130 passing yards and 11 touchdowns behind Trask, with one week to go in the regular season.
The final vote:
The stats are what they are. Kyle Trask, in a normal 12 game regular season, would be on pace to throw 50 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. Mac Jones would be on pace for 36 touchdown passes as well as six interceptions.
However, the question Heisman voters will have to ask themselves; how important is the overall success of the team? If Kyle Trask can lead his team to victory over the number one team in the nation, would it be enough to get him the award? However, if Mac Jones and Alabama shut the door on the Gators in a dominating performance, will Mac Jones win the Heisman even with fewer touchdown passes and yards?
A few things to remember:
Trask is putting up his numbers with nearly no running game. The Gators leading rusher, Dameon Pierce, has only carried the ball 85 times for 417 yards. Meanwhile, Najee Harris has carried the ball 169 times for the Tide, totaling 1038 yards. If Bama was unable to run the ball like Florida, who knows where Mac Jones’ stats would be right now.
Some look at the Heisman as the “MVP” of college football. Which begs the question, is Kyle Trask more valuable than Mac Jones? As mentioned above, Florida has been unable to run the ball this season, so without Trask’s ability to carry the offense with his arm, the Gators may not be SEC East Champs. Flipping that over to Bama, Najee Harris is arguably the best running back in the nation. He could carry more of the load if Jones wasn’t as good this season.
Out of the last five Heisman trophy winners, only two of them were on teams that won the National Championship. In 2015 Derrick Henry won the award, and Bama won the National Championship. Last year Joe Burrow also won the Heisman trophy and National Championship with LSU. Lamar Jackson won the award in 2016 on a 9-4 Louisville team. The success of your team doesn’t always matter.
Either way, the SEC Championship will be a dynamic show of two great teams led by two well-deserving players of the nation’s most prestigious award. Only time will tell who will win the award, but the race to the finish should be fantastic.
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