Separation Saturday, as the crucial season-shaping slate of games was called, certainly gave us plenty of storylines, and as far as the race for the Heisman Trophy goes, we saw a few strong candidates – and pre-season favourites – fall by the wayside. So, who’s in the frame to take home college football’s most prestigious individual award? After ten weeks of football, there’s still likely to be a few twists and turns, but, for the moment, here are my top five:
5. Leonard Fournette (Running Back, Louisiana State University)
Last weekend’s Alabama/Louisiana State contest in Tuscaloosa was billed as a clash of two brilliant running backs, Fournette for LSU and Henry for the Tide, but Fournette was monstered by a fierce Alabama defense, and barely made an impact. In fact, that’s probably putting things nicely. Fournette looked like a kid against grown men, and were it not for a late carry, his yards-per-carry average would’ve been below 1. As it was, the 1.6 yards per carry for thirty one total yards and a touchdown isn’t a great look.
What we need to work out over the next few weeks is whether Fournette’s subpar game on Saturday night was an exception to the rule. Given he averaged nigh on 175 rushing yards per game coming into the Alabama showdown, I’m inclined to think that it is. I mean, this isn’t the first time that a really good back has been stoned by a Nick Saban-coached defense, and it probably won’t be the last, either.
That said, Fournette is going to really need to reel off some big yardage totals down the stretch if he wants to realistically challenge. The Tigers have Arkansas, Ole Miss and Texas A&M, so anything is possible. A top 5 candidate at the moment, but the Tide game has, for mine, really hurt his prospects.
4. Corey Coleman (Wide Receiver, Baylor University)
You basically only need to put the football somewhere in the same postcode as Coleman for the Baylor star to make the catch, and it apparently doesn’t matter which quarterback is throwing to him, either. It was Seth Russell up until last week, when freshman Jarrett Stidham took over after a season-ending injury to Russell, and Coleman still snagged eleven receptions for 216 yards, and scored two touchdowns.
Like the Baylor team as a whole, it’s easy to look at Coleman’s numbers eye-popping – 58 receptions for 1178 yards and twenty touchdowns at a touch over twenty yards per reception – and be impressed, until you remember that the Bears really haven’t played anyone of note.
The schedule gets infinitely harder for Baylor beginning this week, with Oklahoma on the docket, and Oklahoma State and Texas Christian also ahead before the end of the season, so we’ll get a better indication of how good Coleman really is beginning with the primetime Saturday night clash against the Sooners this week. I’m interested to see if he can keep up what’s, frankly, ridiculous production.
3. Ezekiel Elliott (Running Back, Ohio State University)
Having a season for the ages, Elliott is the bright spot in an otherwise uneven Buckeye offense. No matter what the quarterback situation is, Elliott keeps on keeping on. He reeled off his fourteenth straight 100-yard rushing performance last week against Minnesota (114 yards and one touchdown, at an average of 4.4 yards per carry), and helped the defending national champions to another win.
To date this year, no defense has yet been able to slow Elliott down. It’s almost a victory when you hold the back to somewhere around the 110-115 yard mark. Elliott’s scored fourteen touchdowns through ten weeks, and has already rushed for more than 1200 yards at better than 6 yards per touch.
With Michigan State and Michigan still to come for Ohio State, plus a likely Big Ten Championship Game berth against a good Iowa defense, we can probably expect to see Elliott remain at or near the top of the Heisman rankings. And it seems increasingly likely that if Ohio State are to repeat as national champions, it will be thanks to Elliott’s efforts.
2. Derrick Henry (Running Back, University of Alabama)
The Alabama/LSU game was supposed to be a clash of two brilliant running backs, both testing defences, and potentially winning the game by themselves. Except that LSU’s Leonard Fournette was kept well in check by a rampant Nick Saban defense, whilst Henry, a bull of a back, wasn't so well contained. In fact, he ran for 210 yards and three touchdowns against the Tigers, and looked dangerous every time he touched the football in a huge showcase game.
Henry has run for seventeen touchdowns so far this year – that’s tied for the most in FBS football – whilst amassing more than 1250 yards in ten games, averaging nearly six yards a carry. Saturday night’s primetime evisceration of what we thought was a pretty good LSU defense was nothing short of spectacular, and it’s really helped stamp Henry as a serious Heisman contender.
1. Christian McCaffrey (Running Back, Stanford University)
At the moment, my clubhouse leader. Fairly quietly out west, McCaffrey has been putting up eye-popping numbers, carrying Stanford, who stumbled early on the road against Northwestern, towards a Pac-12 Championship Game berth. There isn’t anything McCaffrey can’t do on the football field – and he does everything well. He runs, blocks, throws touchdown passes, makes receptions and handles return duties for punts and kick-offs.
Did you know there’ve been just nine occasions this year where a player as achieved the mark of 300 or more yards of total offense? McCaffrey’s been responsible for three of them, including a whopping 369 yards against UCLA. You can’t argue with those numbers. He’s a special player.
Most of the college football world assumes that the Cardinal will remain undefeated before a showdown with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and that looms as being a test like Fournette had – and failed – against Alabama. If McCaffrey goes off in that game, you could just about start inscribing his name on the Heisman trophy.
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