How many Heisman winners won a Super Bowl?

Only eight Heisman winners went on to win a Super Bowl in the NFL.

The only Heisman Trophy winner to win a Super Bowl since 1989 also happens to be the only defensive player to win the most prestigious award in college athletics.

Charles Woodson winning a Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers in 2011 was the most recent and is part of an elite fraternity that consists of eight people, who pulled off the feat. Roger Staubach and Jim Plunkett are the only Heisman winners to win the Super Bowl multiple times. Both quarterbacks have won two rings.

The Heisman was first awarded in 1935 but the first Super Bowl wasn’t played until 1967. That first Super Bowl between Kansas City and Green Bay saw Heisman winners on each sideline with Mike Garrett from the Chiefs and Paul Hornung on the Packers. Hornung’s team was victorious as he became the first Heisman winner to win a Super Bowl. The Packers bookend this list of winners.

Opening it up to include Heisman winners who played in a Super Bowl and the number swells to 18 with Staubach on five Super Bowl rosters, the most by any Heisman winner.

Heisman winners on Super Bowl rosters (winner denoted with a *)

• 1967 – Mike Garrett (Kansas City), Paul Hornung* (Green Bay)
• 1968 – Billy Cannon (Oakland)
• 1970 – Garrett* (Kansas City), John Huarte* (Kansas City)
• 1971 – Roger Staubach (Dallas)
• 1972 – Staubach* (Dallas)
• 1976 – Staubach (Dallas)
• 1978 – Staubach* (Dallas), Tony Dorsett (Dallas)
• 1979 – Staubach (Dallas), Dorsett (Dallas)
• 1981 – Jim Plunkett* (Oakland)
• 1982 – Archie Griffin (Cincinnati)
• 1984 – Marcus Allen* (Los Angeles Raiders), Plunkett* (Los Angeles Raiders)
• 1988 – George Rogers* (Washington)
• 1997 – Desmond Howard (Green Bay)
• 2000 – Eddie George (Tennessee)
• 2001 – Ron Dayne (New York Giants)
• 2003 – Tim Brown (Oakland), Charles Woodson (Oakland)
• 2004 – Chris Weinke (Carolina)
• 2009 – Matt Leinart (Arizona)
• 2011 – Charles Woodson* (Green Bay)
• 2016 – Cam Newton (Carolina)

Heisman winners who also were named Super Bowl MVP is trimmed down to four with Staubach (1972), Plunkett (81), Allen (84) and Howard (97) pulling off the rare feat. Taking it one step further, Allen is the only one to win the Heisman, national title, NFL MVP, Super Bowl and Super Bowl MVP. He’s also in the Hall of Fame, so that’s a pretty nice accomplishment on his resume.

2016 was the last time a Heisman winner made the Super Bowl behind Cam Newton’s MVP season. This year could see 2008 winner, Mark Ingram, join this list as the New Orleans Saints are one of the best teams in the NFL and could win it all for the first time since the year before Ingram was drafted out of Alabama.

If it’s not Ingram, chances don’t the rest of the active winners, Newton, Baker Mayfield, Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry, Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston, Sam Bradford or Robert Griffin III.

2018 finalists Tua Tagovailoa and Dwayne Haskins will hope to join this club in the future. Kyler Murray looks like he’ll be pursuing his MLB career after the Oakland A’s took him ninth in the last draft, so he won’t be joining this club.