Kyle Trask, Mac Jones making sure Heisman will remain in SEC

Alabama and Florida quarterbacks trending toward SEC Championship Game clash that seems destined to determine Heisman Trophy winner

And then there were two.

While Justin Fields had the most mistake-riddled day of his tenure at Ohio State and Trevor Lawrence sat again after Clemson’s game with Florida State was a late scratch, the SEC’s Heisman Trophy contenders further distanced themselves, making it feel like a certainty that this conference holds all the cards in this race.

Kyle Trask and Mac Jones are the two candidates that matter right now, and they’re on a collision course with Trask and sixth-ranked Florida headed toward a SEC Championship Game meeting with Jones and No. 1 Alabama.

Granted, there is plenty of football to be played before that Dec. 19 clash they’re trending toward in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and both quarterbacks could be challenged this weekend. The Crimson Tide host No. 22 Auburn this Saturday and in last year’s Iron Bowl, the Tigers had two pick-sixes against Jones last season. Meanwhile, the Gators take on Kentucky, which just held Jones to his lowest passer efficiency rating of the season at 166.3.

But even then, Trask is now a -140 favorite per SportsBettingDime and Jones is second (+300), with Fields at +400 and Lawrence a distant fourth (+1600). Not only has the SEC has built itself a cushion in the odds, it’s done so with the two leaders set to face each other with a guaranteed spot in the College Football Playoff on the line.

There’s no one else still in the mix that can match that.

Ohio State’s remaining regular-season schedule brings to mind a dumpster fire GIF – with a pair of two-win teams in Illinois and Michigan and 1-3 Michigan State remaining before the Big Ten title game – and while it will help matters if No. 11 Northwestern can hold up its end of the bargain and create a matchup of unbeatens for the conference crown in Indianapolis. But does that potentially trump Trask cementing his front-runner status by taking down the nation’s top-ranked team or Jones outdueling the presumptive Heisman leader?

As detailed in previous weeks, the lost time has made Lawrence a non-factor, even if No. 2 Notre Dame is lurking for Clemson, and while BYU’s Zach Wilson has been sensational – he’s first in FBS in points responsible for (208) second in pass efficiency (205.3) and third in passing yard (2,724) first – the road for a non-Power 5 player was difficult enough and would seem to be only magnified in a season when most of the major conferences are sticking to their own sandboxes.

SEC Championship Game could determine Heisman Trophy winner

That leaves Trask and Jones and resumes bolstered by statistics that aren’t just about the number of games they’ve played. With both suiting up seven times, the Gators passer has tossed a nation’s-best 31 touchdowns to go with the fifth-most passing yards (2,554), while Jones is 128 yards behind Trask for sixth and is tied for 10th with 18 scores. In this climate, you can argue those overall stats shouldn’t matter as much as the per-game averages and what they’ve done against ranked opponents.

Trask’s 364.9 passing yards per game are second in FBS, as are his 26.6 points responsible for per game, while Jones is fourth in yards per (346.6), while Lawrence is 12th (305.6) and Fields 15th (302). Fields does get a lift in averaging 24 points responsible for (fourth) and Lawrence is 11th (21) compared to Jones at 24th (16.3), but the Alabama quarterback has averaged 426 yards per game against Top-25 opponents, which is second in the nation, while Trask is third in that department at 393.

Meanwhile, the Buckeyes passer’s clean play had been one of his calling cards, but his first regular-season three-interception day vs. Indiana dropped him to a fourth-ranked efficiency rating of 202.1, sandwiching Fields between Jones (205.1) and Trask (197.1).

No, the Heisman hasn’t been decided and Fields, in particular, will have his say should he keep Ohio State on track for a spot in the playoff. However, he’s not getting the help the SEC’s challengers are providing one another and it only brightens the spotlight that the SEC not only boasts the players that Nos. 1 and 2 in the odds, but that they’re likely to share the same stage two days before ballots are due.

It’s a veritable stranglehold on determining the Heisman’s fate and it’s truly uncharted territory.

Keep in mind that the SEC ushered in the age of championship games in 1992, while the Big 12 followed in 1996, the ACC’s debuted in 2005 and the Big Ten and Pac-12 unveiled theirs in 2011, but we’ve not had a game that included that Heisman scenario for a single conference. The closest any league has come was in 2009 when Tim Tebow was mounting his final bid to join Archie Griffin as the only two-time winner as he and Florida met front-runner Mark Ingram and Alabama for the SEC crown. Even that comparison isn’t entirely fair, as Texas’ Colt McCoy, not Tebow, was the biggest threat among quarterbacks that season (and the vote played that out as McCoy was third to Tebow’s distant fifth).

Ingram’s win was sealed by winning that matchup against the Gators, a play Jones could follow, and if it’s Trask, he’d be following the last three SEC winners to come before him. Cam Newton (2010), Johnny Manziel (2012) and Joe Burrow (2019) all cemented their status as the leader by delivering wins against Alabama. Trask would just be one-upping them by taking down the Tide to wrap up the award, with those previous winners all getting those victories in November.

Could Trask-Jones be derailed and the Heisman hype be completely sucked out of the SEC title game? Sure, with three games to play Florida – which has Kentucky, Tennessee and LSU remaining – there’s the scenario where it could lose two of three and cede the East to Georgia; Alabama, barring its LSU game getting rescheduled, could conceivably drop their last two against Auburn and Arkansas. One of those two doomsday plays could throw a wrench into the Gators and Crimson Tide clashing or Trask and Jones could have setbacks over the runups to championship weekend that sour their standing in the race.

None of that seems likely, though.

The SEC quarterbacks stand as each other’s biggest challenger, making all the more Kyle Trask, Mac Jones each other’s biggest challenger and the reason why Heisman will stay in SECreason why the Heisman will reside in Gainesville or Tuscaloosa.

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