What Went Wrong with Ezekiel Elliott's Heisman Chances in 2015

COLUMBUS, Ohio — When the Home Depot College Football Awards show airs live on ESPN from the Atlantic Dance Hall at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Thursday night, it will do so without one of the biggest names in the sport in attendance. And come Saturday night, you won't find Ezekiel Elliott in New York City, either, as the Heisman Trophy is presented to one of three finalists in the Big Apple.

Given the expectations the Ohio State running back carried into the 2015 season, Elliott's absence on this weekend's award circuit would have seemed unfathomable mere months ago.

After entering the year as the front-runner for college football's most prestigious award following his historic run through the College Football Playoff, Elliott has gone from Heisman preseason favorite to postseason afterthought despite still being, statistically, one of the best players in college football. In 12 games, the 6'1", 225-pounder rushed for 1,672 yards and 19 touchdowns, ranking fifth and second in the country in each respective category.

"He should be in New York," Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer said following Elliott's 214-yard, two-touchdown performance in Ohio State's 42-13 win over rival Michigan to close the regular season. "He's one of the best players in America. He should be a Heisman guy."

Yet, Elliott won't even be in Florida on Thursday, where lesser individual accolades like the Doak Walker Award and Maxwell Award will be presented. Nor will he be sitting alongside Alabama running back Derrick Henry, Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson and Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey inside of the PlayStation Theater on Saturday when the Heisman Trophy is presented, despite the St. Louis native seeming to meet all of the criteria that would have previously made him a lock to at least be a finalist for the award.

So what went wrong with Elliott's Heisman chase in 2015?

Much like the entirety of the Buckeyes season, the answer is somewhat complicated.

First, it's important to note the term "Heisman finalist" is somewhat misleading, as the Heisman Trophy Trust doesn't invite a certain amount of players to New York City each December, but rather determines how many finalists there will be based on the closeness of the vote. As recently as 2013, six players were deemed finalists, but last year, it only selected three—the same number of players who were considered finalists this weekend.

So it's entirely possible Elliott will finish the year in the top five of Heisman voting, a status that could have made him a finalist in a season with less lopsided voting. Henry is considered this weekend's heavy favorite with 1-12 odds (via Odds Shark).

Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

Still, the Heisman's need to only invite three finalists this year is indicative of Elliott not being considered a serious threat to win college football's most prestigious award. And his exclusion from Heisman contention is even all the more confusing when considering the criteria Heisman expert—and now employee—Chris Huston has used to accurately predict Heisman winners and finalists since 2008.

According to Huston's "10 Heismandments," contenders are selected based on a combination of performance, position, national exposure and name and school recognition.

Elliott checks off nearly all 10 of the boxes, including:

• The winner must be a quarterback, a running back, or a multi-threat athlete.
• Juniors and seniors have the overwhelming advantage in the Heisman race.
• The winner must have some prior name recognition.
• The winner cannot be considered an obvious product of his team’s system.
• If you are a quarterback, running back or multi-purpose athlete at one of the following schools—Notre Dame, USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio State, Michigan, Miami, Florida and Florida State—you have a good chance to win if you have a very good statistical season and your team wins at least 9 games.

There are two unchecked boxes for Elliott, however, that serve as black marks on his Heisman Trophy campaign. They also happen to relate to one another and may have been what kept him from being in New York this weekend.

The first is Huston's third "Heismandment," the claim that "the winner must produce good numbers in high-profile games on TV."

While practically every Buckeyes game was nationally televised in 2015, none received more attention than Ohio State's Nov. 21 date with Michigan State, with the winner receiving control of the Big Ten East and, potentially, a spot in the College Football Playoff.

With ESPN's College GameDay in town, Ohio State ramped up a mini-Heisman campaign of sorts, trotting Elliott out on the Mike & Mike radio show, where the award was one of the primary topics of conversation. But in a sloppily played game in wintry conditions the following day, the Ohio State running back rushed for a season-low 33 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries in what was ultimately a 17-14 Spartans victory.

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

With Henry having rushed for 210 yards and three touchdowns in a top-four showdown with LSU two weeks prior—and not slowing down anytime soon—Elliott's chances of actually winning the Heisman Trophy were all but over.

It was his actions after the game, however, that may have done the most damage when it came to his hopes of being a finalist.

Huston's 10th and final "Heismandment"—"the winner must be likeable"—is his most subjective and hasn't always proven to have been a necessity. In recent years, Cam Newton, Johnny Manziel and Jameis Winston have all won the Heisman Trophy despite having endured off-field controversies.

And while Elliott has stayed out of trouble throughout his college career, even he admitted that his actions following the Buckeyes game against Michigan State didn't paint him in the best light. After questioning the play-calling of his coaching staff, Elliott declared that he wouldn't be returning to Ohio State for his senior season in a well-documented rant that became a point of national conversation in the sports world for the next week.

"I'm disappointed in the play-calling," Elliott said, visibly emotional. "I feel like we just weren't put in the right opportunity to win this game. We weren't put in the right situations to win this game."

After immediately facing public scrutiny for his comments, it was apparent Elliott was aware of the damage he may have done to his reputation.

To Elliott and Meyer's credit, both sides said all the right things in the following week, and his performance against the Wolverines—which came on a season-high 30 carries—was proof no hard feelings lingered on either side. After the game, Meyer made his pitch for Elliott to be in New York as a Heisman Trophy finalist, and Elliott apologized for his words the week prior, explaining them as emotional and tied to his desire to win.

"I don't care if last week I would have got 10 yards or 150, as long as we would have gotten the [win] and continued the playoff aspirations," Elliott said. "That's the most important thing."

But when it comes to an award with 870 voters spread across the country, one week in the national spotlight for the wrong reason—no matter how benign—in late November could be enough to negatively affect one's Heisman chances. After the loss to Michigan State, Elliott's odds fell from 9-2 to 14-1 (via Bovada), before rising slightly to 12-1 after the Buckeyes' win over the Wolverines.

James Lang-USA TODAY Sports

Elliott still had the third-best odds to win the award, but McCaffrey's 461-yard, two-touchdown performance in the Pac-12 title game pushed him ahead of the Ohio State running back. It's likely not a coincidence, either, that the three Heisman finalists all had big games in their respective conference championships, while Elliott sat at home as the Spartans represented the Big Ten East in Indianapolis.

And to that point, not all of the blame for Elliott's failed Heisman campaign can be pinned on one bad afternoon. If he's looking for additional answers, Elliott can also point to an Ohio State offense that was largely viewed as disappointing and a lack of eye-popping individual performances outside of a 274-yard, three-touchdown effort and the Buckeyes' regular-season finale.

But ultimately, it may have been his performance and the lack of carries he received against Michigan State that prevented him from having a real shot at winning the Heisman Trophy. And it may have been his words after the game that changed an itinerary for New York City this weekend that many assumed had already been set in stone at the start of the 2015 season.

Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Big Ten lead writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com. Recruiting rankings courtesy of 247Sports.