When Jeremiyah Love suffered an injury in the first quarter of Notre Dame's game against Stanford, Irish fans were plenty worried that it would put a damper on his Heisman campaign.
If the latest odds on FanDuel Sportsbook can be believed, it not only put a damper on his Heisman hopes, but it straight killed them. But what should really frustrate Irish fans is that the new frontrunner simply doesn't deserve to win the award over Love.
The latest odds have Jeremiyah Love at just 45 to 1 odds (+4500) to win the Heisman Trophy. That's certainly annoying for the Notre Dame running back, but Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia is now sitting at just around 1.5 to 1 (+160).
Jeremiyah Love’s Heisman slide exposes a flawed voting trend
To put this in other terms, those odds give Pavia about a 38% chance of winning the award while Love has just a 2.2% chance. The Vandy QB has also leaped into a tie for first place with Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza.
Pavia has had an excellent season. He should certainly be a Johnny Unitas award candidate, but Heisman voters are trending too hard towards only giving the award to quarterbacks.
On the season, the Vanderbilt QB has 3,192 yards, 27 touchdowns, and 8 interceptions. He's also got 800 yards on the ground. Those are very good stats. They're just not shoo-ins for the Heisman good. Neither are Fernando Mendoza's, for that matter.
Compare either quarterback's numbers to the last dual-threat quarterback who won the award, Jayden Daniels. In 2023, the former LSU quarterback threw for 3,812 yards and 40 touchdowns to just 4 interceptions. He also ran for 1,134 yards. Those are eye-popping, obvious Heisman numbers.
Meanwhile, Jeremiyah Love has shown himself to be the best running back in the country by a long shot. He also could have put up better numbers if Notre Dame didn't rely so heavily on a two-running back system. Love's numbers are impressive (1,372 yards and 18 touchdowns to go with 27 catches for 280 yards and 3 more TDs)
However, the Notre Dame running back's biggest claim to the award is that analysts all over the sport know that Jeremiyah Love is a generational talent at running back. Diego Pavia is an outstanding player, but he doesn't hit the same tier of talent.