The 2024 college football season was an exciting one. Some years, it feels like no college football players deserve to win the Heisman, but this year, two players had a chance to take home the trophy. Unfortunately, one left empty-handed but still has a chance to make some noise in the College Football Playoffs.
Despite having one of the best seasons by a running back on this side of 2020, Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty won’t go home with college football’s most prestigious award. His season will see him break Barry Sanders’s single-season rushing record in the Fiesta Bowl. It’s an impressive achievement to break Sanders’s record, which he set at Oklahoma State in 1988, but Jeanty will do it in 14 games while Sanders did it in just 11 games.
All of the Ashton Jeanty fans are saying that he is doing something we have never seen before, which is blasphemous. Jeanty is having an incredible season, but it is disrespectful to the legends before him to say that he’s doing something that nobody has done before. In 13 games, Jeanty rushed the ball 344 times for 2,497 yards and 29 touchdowns, averaging 7.3 yards per carry and 192.1 rushing yards per game.
In his junior year at Wisconsin, Melvin Gordon played in 14 games and rushed the ball 343 times for 2,587 yards and 29 touchdowns. He averaged 7.5 yards per carry and 184.8 rushing yards per game. Just like Jeanty, Gordon led the nation in rushing attempts, yards, and touchdowns. Gordon finished second in Heisman voting behind Marcus Mariota.
Kevin Smith also had a similar season at UCF in 2007. He had 450 rushing attempts for 2,567 yards and 29 touchdowns in 14 games. Similar to Jeanty and Gordon, Smith led the nation in rushing attempts, yards, and touchdowns. He finished eighth in Heisman Voting, with Florida legend Tim Tebow taking home the trophy. It’s been a great season from Jeanty, but it’s disrespectful to say that nobody has ever done this before.
On top of being an All-American, Jeanty is taking home the Maxwell Award, the nation’s most outstanding player, and the Doak Walker Award for the nation’s top running back. In any other season, the Boise State star takes home the award, but not this year. He ran into an anomaly in Travis Hunter, a specimen that the college football world has truly never seen before.
On the flip side of Jeanty’s season, Travis Hunter had a season that college football has never seen before. Sure, players have played on both sides of the ball before, but nobody has been as good on both sides of the ball as Hunter. He’s the first player ever to accrue 1,000+ receiving yards, 10+ touchdowns, and multiple interceptions in a season.
Hunter filled up his trophy room this season, taking home the 2024 AP Player of the Year Award, The Ronnie Lott Trophy, the Bednarik Award, the Biletnikoff Award, and the Paul Hornung Award for the second year in a row. He was the first player to win the Hornung Award in back-to-back seasons and the first to win the Bednarik and Biletnikoff Awards in the same season.
Many of the Hunter haters are truly just Deion Sanders haters that have trickled down to the legend’s protege. They like to say that all Hunter did this season was cardio, but playing an average of 120 snaps a game is unheard of, especially at the level that he has. He posted four games with a touchdown and an interception.
The Colorado star finished fifth in the nation in receptions, sixth in receiving yards, and second in receiving touchdowns. He didn’t lead the categories, but placing that high while playing on the other side of the ball at an elite level is incredible stuff. Nobody has ever done it before. He only had five games this season in which he didn’t eclipse 100 receiving yards, and two of those games saw him leave early with an injury.
Both Jeanty and Hunter had a case to take home the Heisman Trophy in 2024. Although fans of both sides won’t admit it, both guys are incredible. It’s just disingenuous to say that Jeanty is doing something that has never been done before and that Hunter is just a cardio merchant. Both guys tore up the college football scene in 2024, and if they could’ve split the Heisman Trophy in half and given each guy a share of it, they would’ve.
Hunter indeed did something that had never been done before. He played at an All-American level on both sides of the football. Sure, guys like Champ Bailey and Charles Woodson played on both sides of the ball, but neither did it at Hunter’s level.
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