Heisman Trophy predictions: 7 candidates to win college football’s top award in 2026
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The Heisman Trophy goes to the college football player who separates himself over three months, which is why the preseason list of candidates almost never matches the December finalists. Last year proved it again when a quarterback few had heard of in August, Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, walked away with the trophy.
The 2026 field is deep, led by returning starters who chose college over the NFL, a group of transfers in new homes and a handful of skill players hoping to break a long positional drought. Some of these names are safe bets to contend while others need to break out during their teams’ biggest games.
CJ Carr, Notre Dame
Carr enters 2026 as the college football preseason frontrunner in most rankings, and the resume behind that billing is real. As a redshirt freshman, he threw for 2,741 yards with 24 touchdowns against six interceptions, completed two-thirds of his passes and set the Notre Dame single-season passer efficiency record while leading the Fighting Irish to a 10-2 finish.
What makes his campaign worth watching is how much is changing around him. Running backs Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price both left for the NFL, and Notre Dame does not return a back who started a game last season.
More of the offense will run through Carr than it did a year ago. His receiver group is deep, led by Jordan Faison and Jaden Greathouse, who returns after missing most of 2025 with injury, alongside Ohio State transfers Mylan Graham and Quincy Porter. The offensive line, anchored by tackles Guerby Lambert and Will Black, is expected to be a strength of the roster despite a lack of experience.
Carr is playing down the early Heisman Trophy buzz.
“The individual awards [are] kind of just noise,” he said. That mindset fits a quarterback who watched Fernando Mendoza rise from outside the preseason picture to win the award last year. Carr has the arm, the protection and the returning starter continuity that voters reward, and if the new backfield holds up, he has as clear a path to New York as anyone in the field.
Arch Manning, Texas
Manning is the name that drives the national conversation, and 2026 is the year the production is supposed to catch up to the hype. His first season as the Texas starter was uneven, a rough September that included a loss at Ohio State, followed by a strong second half. He finished with 3,163 yards, 26 touchdowns and seven interceptions, ran for ten more scores, then closed by passing and running for 376 yards and four touchdowns in a Citrus Bowl win over Michigan.
He returns for his junior year with the offense rebuilt around him. Auburn transfer Cam Coleman, the top receiver in the portal, joins returning leading receiver Ryan Wingo to give Manning one of the deepest pass-catching groups in the country. Coach Steve Sarkisian has one of the most talented rosters in the sport. The schedule hands Manning his marquee stage early, with Ohio State visiting Austin on September 12, a rematch of the game that derailed last year’s opener.
Sarkisian keeps pointing to the quiet approach that defined Manning’s climb. “All he did was work really hard,” Sarkisian said. Manning has echoed that focus, saying his offseason goal was to stay present and take it one day at a time. The talent has never been the question. With a full year of starting experience and an upgraded roster, Manning has the arm, the weapons and the platform to win it.
Julian Sayin, Ohio State
Sayin is the contender who has already been to the ceremony and comes back with the numbers to build on it. As a redshirt freshman, he threw for 3,610 yards with 32 touchdowns against eight interceptions, led the nation with a 77% completion rate that set a Big Ten single-season record and finished second nationally in passer rating. He was a Heisman finalist, placed fourth in the vote and led Ohio State to a 12-0 regular season with a win over Michigan.
The questions come from December. Indiana sacked him five times and beat the Buckeyes in the Big Ten title game, then Miami returned a Sayin screen pass 72 yards for a pick-six that ended the national title defense in the first playoff round. Those two games are the difference between the resume he has and the one a winner needs.
He returns to a rebuilt offense that lost eleven players to the NFL Draft, but he still has Jeremiah Smith, the best receiver in the country, plus veteran slot man Brandon Inniss and an open competition for the outside spot. Smith has said his goals include winning the Biletnikoff Award and attending the ceremony as a finalist. If the new pieces around Smith settle in early, Sayin has the resume and the platform to move from finalist to winner.
Darian Mensah, Miami
Mensah is the transfer with the highest ceiling in this field, and Miami built its whole season around giving him a runway. At Duke last year, he threw for nearly 3,900 yards with 34 touchdowns and six interceptions, earned second-team All-ACC honors and led the Blue Devils to the conference championship game. Then he moved to Coral Gables on an eight-figure reported deal, becoming the latest in a line of Miami transfer quarterbacks that includes Cam Ward and Carson Beck.
The supporting cast is why the hype is real. Rising sophomore receiver Malachi Toney is coming off a 109-catch, 1,211-yard freshman season, running back Mark Fletcher returns after 1,192 yards and 12 touchdowns, and Mensah brought his favorite Duke target, Cooper Barkate, with him. The schedule sets up well, with only a couple of top-tier college football defenses on the slate and a Friday night opener at Stanford.
Mensah explained his decision to land in the ACC. “Seeing the kind of roster Miami has, I wanted to compete for a national championship,” he said. The one caution is a rebuilt offensive line that lost four starters. If that group holds, Mensah has the arm and the weapons to put up the kind of numbers that win the award and end Miami’s Heisman drought dating to 1992.
Dante Moore, Oregon
Moore is the veteran whose team is already treating him like a Heisman centerpiece. In his first full season as a starter, he threw for 3,565 yards and 30 touchdowns and led Oregon to a 13-2 record and a College Football Playoff semifinal. He then turned down a likely top-of-the-draft selection to return for his junior year, and coach Dan Lanning has called the 2026 Ducks the most experienced and player-led roster of his tenure.
The pieces around him are strong. New offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer was already on staff and built the offense with Moore’s input, receiver Dakorien Moore returns for year two, Evan Stewart is back from the torn patellar tendon that cost him all of 2025, and Oregon may open the year ranked near the top of the polls. Moore also added 17 pounds since the semifinal loss to Indiana, part of a deliberate physical jump.
Moore is comfortable with the college football spotlight and thinking big. “This upcoming year is going to be one where we chase history,” he said at Big Ten Media Days. Oregon has sent a quarterback to New York as a Heisman finalist in two of the last three years with Bo Nix and Dillon Gabriel. Moore is the next in that line, and with this roster, he has a real path to winning it.
John Mateer, Oklahoma
Mateer is the dark horse whose 2026 case rests on getting back to who he was for one month last fall. Through the first four games of 2025, he threw for 1,215 yards with early Heisman buzz, added 190 rushing yards and five scores and led Oklahoma to a 4-0 start and a top-ten ranking. Then he broke a bone in his throwing hand against Auburn, played through it, had surgery and missed one game. The quarterback who returned for the final eight was not the same, throwing eight touchdowns against eight interceptions down the stretch.
He is now fully healthy, and the situation around him has improved. Coach Brent Venables returns an experienced roster with Playoff aspirations, offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle runs the offense, and the receiver group is deeper than it was a year ago. Venables has spent the offseason working with Mateer on reading defenses, one area the quarterback admitted he needed to sharpen.
Mateer says the near miss reset his priorities. “I’ve been trying to scale back on the personal stuff. If it happens, it happens, but the team is what matters,” he said. If the early 2025 version shows up over a full, healthy season, Mateer has the dual-threat production to climb back into the race he was leading before the injury.
Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State
Smith is the one non-quarterback with a real case to win the Heisman Trophy. He caught 87 passes for 1,243 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2025 despite missing two late games with injury, led the Big Ten in receiving for a second straight year and was a unanimous first-team All-American. He has posted three straight 1,000-yard seasons and is already rewriting the Ohio State record book, with early 2027 mock drafts placing him as a potential number one overall pick.
The obstacle is history. No traditional receiver has won the Heisman since DeVonta Smith in 2020, and the Ohio State star knows history isn’t on his side. “I feel like it’s always a quarterback award, unless you have a crazy season like DeVonta Smith,” he said.
He is chasing both the Heisman and the Biletnikoff, the receiver award that went to USC’s Makai Lemon last season with Smith as a finalist. The Big Ten still named him preseason offensive player of the year over Dante Moore and his own quarterback Julian Sayin.
Smith returns for a third year with Sayin throwing to him, and Ohio State needs him to carry an offense that lost eleven players to the draft. The talent is not in question, and the volume will be there. For Smith to win, he needs the kind of record season that forces voters to look past position, and he is one of the few college football receivers in the country capable of producing it.
My pick to win the 2026 Heisman Trophy
Give me Arch Manning. The tools and media attention that made him the No. 1 recruit in the country are matched now by a year of starting experience, an upgraded roster and a home rematch with Ohio State in Week 2 that can define his campaign before October. If Texas contends for a national title, the most famous name in the sport finally has the season to go with it.
Honorable mentions: QB Gunner Stockton, Georgia; QB Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss; QB Drew Mestemaker, Oklahoma State; QB Marcel Reed, Texas A&M; WR Malachi Toney, Miami
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