Who will win the Heisman this season? The 2025 college football season has a few great quarterbacks leading undefeated teams, delivering marquee wins and putting up great stats in the process. While several of them will make the trip to New York City for the Heisman Trophy ceremony, only one can take home the hardware.
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Let's dive into our Heisman Trophy candidates rankings entering November.
Stats and highlights are part of every Heisman Trophy candidacy, but signature moments are the biggest difference-makers. The numbers that Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza put up this season are spectacular. Entering Week 10, he ranks fourth in ESPN QBR (88.6), fourth in completion rate (72.9 percent), and fourth in yards per attempt (9.5) among quarterbacks with 200-plus attempts. He's also delivered in big games. Against Illinois, Mendoza had more than twice as many touchdown passes (five) as incompletions (two). In the Hoosiers' biggest test of the season at Autzen Stadium versus Oregon, Mendoza led a fourth-quarter comeback to beat Oregon by 10 points. The numbers and Heisman moments versus Illinois and Oregon make Mendoza the front-runner for the Heisman.
Even when the Alabama Crimson Tide suffered an ugly loss to Florida State, Ty Simpson handled himself pretty well. The first-year starting quarterback then had the benefit of building some confidence against weaker teams, Louisiana-Monroe and Wisconsin, putting up eight total touchdowns with 608 passing yards and an 89 percent completion rate. It was then a question of whether Simpson and the Crimson Tide could maintain that in a four-game stretch versus top-16 ranked SEC opponents, with two of those games on the road. He's done that and then some. Versus Georgia, Vanderbilt, Missouri, and Tennessee, Simpson put up 1,069 passing yards (267.3 yards per game), completed 69 percent of his passes, averaged 8.3 yards per attempt, and recorded a 9-1 TD-INT line with one rushing touchdown. Simpson might not have the undefeated record to match Mendoza, but the Alabama schedule can deliver another ranked victory and a rivalry win that might put him over the top.
Julian Sayin had to win the battle this summer to become the Ohio State Buckeyes starting quarterback. He won in his first career start versus Texas, but the Buckeyes put very little on his shoulders (126 passing yards on 20 attempts). Since then, he's been one of the most productive quarterbacks in college football. Sayin boasts an 81.7 percent completion rate in his last six games, the highest mark in college football. He's also averaged 10.0 yards per attempt with an 18-3 TD-INT ratio and 1,746 passing yards. The one thing that hurts the sophomore quarterback, of course, is Ohio State doesn't really have a marquee win this season. Texas has barely been a top-25 team this season, and while Sayin beat Illinois, Mendoza put on a far better performance versus the same opponent.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets quarterback Haynes King doesn't have passing totals (1,480 passing yards and 7 touchdowns) to match Mendoza, Sayin, and Simpson, but he is everything to the Yellow Jackets' offense. In the Week 2 win over then-12th ranked Clemson, King put up 211 passing yards with a 71.4 percent completion rate and turned 25 carries into 103 yards and 4 touchdowns. In his four games, he had three 10-yard rushing games and 7 rushing touchdowns. Recently, Georgia Tech has been putting more on his plate as a passer. King is coming off a 304-yard, three-touchdown performance versus Syracuse, which followed a 120-yard rushing game against Manny Diaz's defense. Leading an undefeated Georgia Tech team in both passing and rushing, King's resume right now would deserve a trip to New York City as a Heisman finalist.
Heading into the LSU matchup, Marcel Reed and the Texas A&M Aggies were flying under the radar. That changed after Reed went into Jayden Daniels mode at Death Valley against the Tigers' defense. He erupted for a career-best 108 rushing yards, punching in two scores on the ground and two through the air with 310 total yards in a 49-25 win. What hurts Reed's resume, landing him fifth in our Heisman Trophy candidates rankings, is the fact he's thrown six interceptions this season and has a 10-6 TD-INT line versus Power 4 defenses. However, Texas A&M doesn't beat Notre Dame (41-40) without him.