Lack of National Heisman Buzz Is a Good Thing for Oregon QB Marcus Mariota

Where has the Heisman race been this season?

The answer is easy: firmly behind the playoff discussion, along with pretty much everything else related to the sport. It's basically on the event horizon of college football's black hole. 

From conversing about which team will get the fourth and final spot to figuring out what "game control" means, just about every talking point on every outlet is related to the playoff. That's actually impressive in a 24/7/365 news cycle.

Maybe in time that mellows out. The new format is still a novelty, after all. For now, though, the Heisman is something that has been lumped like an afterthought into the dead period between the end of the regular season and bowl season.  

The less that the Heisman race is dissected, the better chance Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota has to win the award.

How is that the case?

Consider the following: Last Saturday, Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon had, quite literally, the greatest rushing performance by an FBS player in history. His 408 yards against Nebraska in three quarters broke LaDainian Tomlinson's single-game rushing record (406 yards). Gordon's performance was so meaningful, in fact, that Nebraska's rush defense fell 57 spots in yards per game allowed in one day. 

Meanwhile, Mariota and Oregon had the weekend off. 

Yet ESPN's latest Heisman watch still has Mariota first and Gordon second, though the gap is small. According to recent odds via CBS Sports, Mariota is a 1-3 favorite to win the Heisman, with Gordon at 5-2. If Gordon's career day can't propel him past Mariota on a bye week, what will? 

One game does not a season make, but those are the types of performances that fall under the "Heisman moment" umbrella. Gordon has been excellent all year, and Heisman voters are connoisseurs of stats, especially easy-to-digest offensive stats. 

For all anyone knows, Florida State offensive guard Tre' Jackson, an Outland Trophy semifinalist, may be the most outstanding player in college football. There's no way to explore that, because few people actually pay close attention to linemen, and he doesn't throw for 4,000 yards. 

(The concept of a large man throwing a touchdown pass is beautiful, however. Arkansas understands that.) 

That raises the question: Have voters already made up their minds? Ballots can be thoughtless, and if there's no open discussion about the Heisman race, voters could go with the formula. 

What, you might ask, is the formula? B/R's Ray Glier explained it this week in a must-read post about the Heisman:

"

Here is the winning formula (don't tell anybody):

A quarterback or running back on a top-five team with a bundle of yards.

Here is the backup formula:

A quarterback or running back on a team that has two or three losses, and that quarterback or running back has just too many yards to ignore.

He's in too.

"

Mariota fits the formula, as did 12 of the last 13 winners who were quarterbacks. There was a time last year when Mariota was considered the front-runner for the Heisman before he got hurt late in the season. It was a foregone conclusion that he would be a Heisman candidate this year.  

That's not an indictment on Mariota, and to be fair, there could be many voters who genuinely believe he is the most outstanding player in the country. He's been excellent and is on pace to surpass his numbers from a year ago (3,665 passing yards, 715 rushing yards, 40 total touchdowns). 

Morry Gash/Associated Press

He's gone out each week and played his tail off. 

But there's also no doubt that the Heisman has become a glorified Davey O'Brien Award, given annually to the best quarterback. Sure enough, five of the players on ESPN's eight-man Heisman watch are quarterbacks. 

The Heisman race has little imagination to begin with. It does not dare to be different. Alabama wide receiver Amari Cooper will get some votes. Maybe Washington linebacker/running back Shaq Thompson will too. But they probably won't have a chance to win. 

Of course, breaking the habit is hard to do. Whether a voter is a national columnist or beat reporter, following 128 FBS teams and their players is impossible. 

Here's what we know: Mariota is a household name, puts up gaudy stats, plays on a good team and passes the eye test if/when people watch him. He also says the right things that make him impossible to dislike.  

"For myself, I just try to represent where I come from, my family, this university in the right light. There is no extra responsibility with being a Heisman Trophy candidate," Mariota told B/R's Greg Couch last month.

That's not to say Mariota doesn't mean what he says, but what he says checks out all the same. It all checks out.

With so much time and energy devoted to other interests, like the playoff, there isn't time to dive deeper than that on a large scale. Yes, there's still football to be played. As Texas A&M quarterback Kenny Hill showed, the Heisman isn't won in September. 

It is, however, won in November and December. So long as Mariota finishes strong—he plays Colorado, Oregon State and a Pac-12 South opponent in a conference championship game—he'll check off one more box on his way to New York. 

Barring an injury or late-season collapse, this feels like Mariota's year. It's felt that way for a while. The assumption that Mariota is the front-runner has paved the way, at least in part, to him being the front-runner. 

And that's the thing. 

Ben Kercheval is a lead writer for college football. Stats courtesy of CFBStats.com.