Is a RB or QB More Likely to Win 2015 Heisman?
The Heisman Trophy was a running back trophy by design.
It's true in a literal sense. Former New York University running back Ed Smith struck the famous pose for trophy sculptor and childhood friend Frank Eliscu in 1935.
It's also true in a historical sense. The award was mostly given to running backs during its first half-century. From 1973 to 1983, only running backs received the trophy.
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But the Heisman's status as mainly a running back trophy started to fade, and then the 21st century completely wiped out that notion.
Since Ron Dayne won the award in 1999, only one running back has won the Heisman Trophy—Mark Ingram, the offensive star of Alabama's 2009 national championship season.
With the exception of that year, every other Heisman Trophy in the 2000s and 2010s has gone to a quarterback. Thanks to efficient pro-style passers and dual-threat scoring machines, the game and its most famous individual prize have transitioned to a quarterbacks club.
But as college football heads into a campaign following the offseason departures of the last two Heisman winners—Florida State's Jameis Winston and Oregon's Marcus Mariota—is this the year a running back loosens the quarterbacks' grip on the Heisman?
The results
Since Ingram won the award in 2009, 10 of the 50 top-10 finishes in Heisman voting have gone to running backs.
But how close were these backs to knocking the quarterback off the top of the vote? Here are the best finishes by running backs in the last five years.
| Melvin Gordon (Wisconsin) | 2014 | 2nd | 1,284 (Marcus Mariota) |
| Trent Richardson (Alabama) | 2011 | 3rd | 709 (Robert Griffin III) |
| LaMichael James (Oregon) | 2010 | 3rd | 1,347 (Cam Newton) |
| Montee Ball (Wisconsin) | 2011 | 4th | 1,339 (Robert Griffin III) |
| Andre Williams (Boston College) | 2013 | 4th | 1,735 (Jameis Winston) |
| Tre Mason (Auburn) | 2013 | 6th | 1,801 (Jameis Winston) |
| Tevin Coleman (Indiana) | 2014 | 7th | 2,490 (Marcus Mariota) |
| Kenjon Barner (Oregon) | 2012 | 9th | 1,987 (Johnny Manziel) |
| LaMichael James (Oregon) | 2011 | 10th | 1,639 (Robert Griffin III) |
| Kadeem Carey (Arizona) | 2013 | 10th | 2,135 (Jameis Winston) |
By comparison, 29 of the 50 top-10 finishes of those Heisman votes have gone to quarterbacks.
So running backs are in an uphill battle to not just win the Heisman Trophy, but to get a high finish in the voting for it.
The five top-five finishers in that list—Melvin Gordon, Trent Richardson, LaMichael James, Montee Ball and Andre Williams—all finished in the top five nationally in rushing yards per game for their respective seasons. Each of them played for a Power Five team and also had at least 18 touchdowns.
The running back who has come the "closest" to winning the Heisman in terms of place is Gordon, who just missed out on breaking Barry Sanders' all-time record for rushing yards in a single season last year.
And, even with that historic accomplishment, Gordon had 751 fewer first-place votes than Mariota.
Simply put, this century hasn't been kind at all to running backs in the Heisman race.
The contenders
While none of the three finalists for last year's Heisman Trophy are back for 2015, the quarterbacks still have a built-in head start over the running backs in college football.
Four of the top-10 Heisman vote-getters from last year—three quarterbacks and one linebacker—will play this season. TCU's Trevone Boykin (fourth in 2014), Ohio State's J.T. Barrett (fifth) and Mississippi State's Dak Prescott (eighth) are all back on campus.
Boykin is the early 2015 favorite by a landslide, and Prescott has been mentioned by many as a potential contender. If Barrett returns from injury and becomes Ohio State's No. 1 quarterback again, he has a great chance to be firmly in the Heisman race all this fall. If not, Cardale Jones or Braxton Miller will take his seat on the hype train.
And one can't forget about the other quarterback candidates on many Heisman lists such as USC's Cody Kessler, Clemson's Deshaun Watson, Michigan State's Connor Cook, Florida State's Everett Golson and even Auburn's Jeremy Johnson, who hasn't been a full-time starter yet in his college career.
But one of the most intriguing aspects of the early Heisman buzz is the amount of running backs making their way onto lists, despite the quarterbacks' dominance of the award.
According to Odds Shark, the top 10 Heisman contenders in Las Vegas this month are split evenly between quarterbacks and running backs—and Ohio State's Ezekiel Elliott has even better odds from Vegas than Boykin:
| Ezekiel Elliott | Ohio State | Junior | 6-1 |
| Leonard Fournette | LSU | Sophomore | 8-1 |
| Nick Chubb | Georgia | Sophomore | 8-1 |
| Derrick Henry | Alabama | Junior | 16-1 |
| Paul Perkins | UCLA | Junior | 18-1 |
Each of these five running backs brings strong cases to the table for 2015.
Elliott exploded toward the end of the 2014 season and for more than 200 yards in each of Ohio State's three postseason wins. Leonard Fournette had a breakout true freshman year with more than 1,000 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns. Nick Chubb joined elite company last season and averaged more than seven yards per carry while backing up Todd Gurley.
Down the list, Derrick Henry is a physical freak and should be the No. 1 running back for national title contender Alabama this fall. And then there's Paul Perkins, who was the Pac-12's leading rusher in 2014.
Then there's still plenty of room for Oklahoma's Samaje Perine, Wisconsin's Corey Clement or a wild-card running back to break into the race. But remember—it's a lot easier for a quarterback to do the exact same thing.
The pick
Although several of the best running backs from 2014 are gone, this upcoming season seems to have more intriguing non-quarterback candidates than in years past.
However, history is going to be hard to shake for many of the backs, especially the ones who haven't gone through a whole season of being in the spotlight.
As Bleacher Report's Ben Kercheval wrote last month, running backs have the extra burden to do more than their quarterback brethren—and that might not even be enough:
"Unless there's a down year for quarterbacks, they'll have to get more involved somehow. Last season, Elliott caught 28 passes for zero touchdowns, and Chubb recorded only two receiving touchdowns.
Those two players might be elite every-down backs who will go on to have lengthy pro careers, but their Heisman chances (and the chances of all the players like them) realistically go up in one of two ways:
They do more, or quarterbacks do less. Perhaps a little bit of both doesn't hurt.
"
The Heisman potential of an Elliott or a Chubb is intriguing, but they both have huge mountains to climb compared to players such as Boykin, who has already stood out in the media as "the guy to beat" and is also on a strong national title contender.
This could be the year a running back turns back the clock and joins Ingram in the Heisman fraternity.
But the forerunners and the field say the much safer pick is still going to line up at signal-caller.
Justin Ferguson is an on-call college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
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