Jamie Newman has the third-best Heisman odds which goes to prove there must only be two legit Heisman candidates this year because that’s a joke.
The top of the 2020 Heisman odds make sense with Justin Fields and Trevor Lawrence as the leading favorites but beyond them, it’s full of unproven players and wild cards, as shown by Jamie Newman as the third-leading candidate.
According to the latest Heisman odds from William Hill, Newman has 10/1 odds, but I’ll give you 100/1 odds if the casual college football fan can even name what team he plays for.
I’ll give you 1000/1 odds if you can identify him if he walked in the room with a “Hi, my name is Jamie Newman” t-shirt on.
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Newman is a fine player who did some really nice things while at Wake Forest. The 6-foot-4, 230-pounder completed 61 percent of his passes for 2,868 yards with 26 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He also added six touchdowns and 574 yards on the ground while averaging 3.2 yards per carry in 2019.
He was a good player for a team that isn’t loaded with the kind of talent Clemson, Ohio State, Alabama or LSU have and he still put up respectable numbers and caught the attention of Georgia.
After transferring to Georgia, it would appear the hype machine has been working overtime to present Newman as the next Joe Burrow or something like that. That’s just crazy. There’s this thing in recruiting called the “Bama bump” when recruits magically get another star added and make a dramatic move up the recruiting rankings after the Crimson Tide offers or a player commits to Nick Saban.
It’s like, “if Saban wants them, they must be better than we thought” and that’s what’s happening with Newman who put on a new uniform but he’s the same player.
You don’t leave Wake Forest and go to Georgia and suddenly you throw the ball farther, harder and with more accuracy. It doesn’t mean you can read defenses any better or process decisions that much faster. It doesn’t mean you’re a more efficient runner.
It does, however, give you an upgrade in talent.
Newman broke out in large part because of sophomore receiver Sage Surratt who had 1,0001 yards and 11 touchdowns on 66 receptions in only nine games. Newman’s effectiveness trailed off late in the year when Suratt was out of the lineup.
Georgia has an intriguing talent in George Pickens who is coming off a fantastic freshman season that saw him haul in 47 receptions for 727 yards and eight touchdowns. The 6-foot-3, 195-pound Pickens had six touchdowns in his last six games, including one in the Sugar Bowl vs. Baylor when he had 12 receptions for 175 yards. That was a better freshman season than reigning Biletnikoff winner Ja’Marr Chase who was the top receiver for Joe Burrow during his Heisman season last year.
Am I talking myself into betting on Newman to win the Heisman?!
No, no, I’m not.
This is totally ridiculous to put Newman behind Fields and Lawrence in the Heisman hierarchy. They are the two best football players in the nation and Newman was above-average for one season at Wake Forest. Why am I to believe he’ll be in a better offensive system on Kirby Smart‘s watch? Smart watched as Jake Fromm didn’t progress for two straight years after quarterbacking Georgia to the National Championship Game as a freshman.
Yes, Fromm lost much of the weapons around him and the defense had attrition the last two years, but why is Newman going to be such a significant upgrade over Fromm who never sniffed the Heisman when he did have so much more talent around him?
Newman and Pickens should be a good duo this year, but I’m not putting my money on the line to see if that comes to fruition. If I’m going to bet on a quarterback winning the Heisman who isn’t Fields or Lawrence, it’ll be someone like Oklahoma’s Spencer Rattler who was a former five-star recruit and plays in an offense that developed two Heisman winners and the Heisman runner-up the last three years.
Or it’ll be Myles Brennan at LSU who gets to throw to Chase and while Joe Brady won’t be at LSU, much of his passing concepts and play calls will.
I’d rather take a flier on Alabama’s Mac Jones who gets to throw to future first round picks, Jaylen Waddle and Devonta Smith and hand the ball off to Najee Harris.
Nothing against Newman who has a lot of traits to like on the college level and projecting to the next level, but if you put money on him to win the Heisman, you may as well just set the money on fire.
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