Over the past six seasons, AthleticsCollege football writers held a preseason draft of Heisman contendersearning points based on the ranking of our selections in voting (if any of them are). I consider it a success to simply choose A eventual finalists, as happened last season with my first-round pick: Notre Dame running back Jeremiah Love, who finished in third place.
Interestingly, and perhaps embarrassingly, he was the highest finisher any of us selected. But I was edged out in the final rankings by Ralph Russo, who had two of the top six vote-getters with the Ohio State tandem of Julian Sayin and Jeremiah Smith.
| Writer | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Vannini |
Club Cade |
Sam Leavitt |
Miller Moss |
Kevin Jennings |
|
Russian |
Jeremiah Smith |
Avery Johnson |
Julien Sayin |
Marcel Reed |
|
Dochtermann |
Arch Manning |
Demond Williams |
Elie Holstein |
Marc Gronowski |
|
Mandel |
Jeremy Love |
Bryce Underwood |
Nick Singleton |
Darian Mensah |
|
Feldman |
Garrett Nussmeier |
Carson Beck |
Ty Simpson |
Dylan Raiola |
|
Ubben |
LaNorris Sellers |
DJ Lagway |
Devon Dampier |
Austin Simmons |
|
Navarro |
Jackson Arnold |
Dante Moore |
Ryan Williams |
Nate Frazier |
|
Williams |
Drew Allar |
John Mateer |
Makhi Hughes |
TJ Parker |
None of our eight voters used any of our 32 combined picks on this year’s winner, Indiana’s quarterback. Fernando Mendoza. But in all honesty, how could anyone have seen this coming? Mendoza went 10-10 in two seasons as a starter at Cal before transferring to Indiana. He became the first winner to go undrafted in our poll since Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith in 2020.
More inexplicable is the fact that no one picked the runner-up either, despite the fact that Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia was a star in 2024. I can’t speak for the others, but I remember assuming in the preseason that Vanderbilt would be a 6-6 type team, which wouldn’t be good enough to bring their quarterback to New York.
Instead, the Commodores broke through and won 10 games.
It was the first time no one selected the runner-up since TCU’s Max Duggan in 2022 and the first time neither of the top two was drafted. It may not be a coincidence that this is the year the first two played for Indiana and Vanderbilt.
As always, it’s fun to look back and cringe at some of the names that were drafted, starting with Chris Vannini’s No. 1 pick: Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik. Klubnik was one of several first-round QBs who finished with disappointing seasons, including LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, Penn State’s Drew Allar (although he missed the second half of the season) and, uh, Auburn’s Jackson Arnold. Yeah on that one, Manny Navarro.
The biggest failure of the draft, however, came from Justin Williams. He used his third-round pick on Oregon running back Makhi Hughes, who finished the season with 17 carries.
In total, our panel embarrassingly missed seven of the top 10. Besides Mendoza and Pavia, no one selected Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez (No. 5), Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton (No. 7), Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss (No. 8), Ohio State safety Caleb Downs (No. 9) or Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King (No. 10).
Good luck to all of us next year.
