Will Alabama vs. Ole Miss decide Heisman race between Matt Corral, Bryce Young?

The nation’s two best players through the first month, Ole Miss’ Matt Corral and Alabama’s Bryce Young clash in a potentially defining game for the Heisman race. Plus, the players rising and falling after Week 4.

For posterity’s sake, the Heisman Trophy guidelines have been checked and then checked again. Nothing’s changed and the fact remains that you can’t win the award in September.

But what about October?

As a slew of preseason favorites have faded as the first month of the season came to a close, Ole Miss’ Matt Corral and Alabama’s Bryce Young have pulled away from the field — and just in time for a weekend-stealing showdown Saturday in Tuscaloosa.

The quarterbacks are first (Young at 188.52) and second (Corral at 187.71) in passer rating in the SEC, with Young throwing for 1,125 yards, nine touchdowns and one interception, while Corral has yet to be picked off in throwing for nine scores and 1,006 yards. Corral is at the controls of FBS’ highest-scoring offense (52.7 points per game) and is the only Power-5 passer with more than eight touchdowns who has yet to throw an interception; Alabama is averaging 46.5 ppg (fourth nationally), with Young coming off a five-touchdown game against Southern Miss.

In 2016, Louisville’s Lamar Jackson turned this same opportunity on the first weekend of October into bronze. His Cardinals were ranked third, taking on Deshaun Watson and No. 5 Clemson, and Jackson racked up 457 total yards and three touchdowns to 397 yards and five scores from his counterpart. Come December, Jackson beat Watson by 620 points for the Heisman.

That said, there is some historical precedent that what happens in Bryant-Denny Stadium won’t be a declaration of what’s to come this winter in New York. In October 1939, Iowa’s Nile Kinnick and Michigan’s Tom Harmon met in Ann Arbor and while Harmon stole the show — he rushed for 112 yards and three touchdowns, picked off two passes, including one he returned for another score, and he also kicked all of the Wolverines’ extra points in a 27-7 win — and he still finished 246 points behind Kinnick in the Heisman voting.

(Don’t feel bad for Harmon, though. He claimed his Heisman a year later.)

But back to Corral and Young, and with the stranglehold the SEC has on the college football universe — the conference holds the top two spots in both The Associated Press Top 25 and Coaches Poll — it’s going to take something spectacular to sway Heisman voters’ attention elsewhere over these coming weeks, and there hasn’t been a lot of momentum to think that’s going to happen.

It’s frankly been a lackluster Heisman season thus far. Oklahoma’s Spencer Rattler, Clemson’s D.J. Uiagalelei and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud are all among those summer darlings that have all been less than the trophy-worthy versions of themselves that were expected. Young and Corral were simply the two best players in the nation through September, and the SEC scheduling gods have gifted us with a duel that should help set the direction of this race.

That isn’t to say that either Young or Corral can be crowned after this weekend. But with the loser spending the coming weeks trying to play catchup, it’s pretty close.

Heisman stock watch: Which candidates are heating up, which ones are falling off?

Buy: Sean Clifford, Penn State

Clifford dialed up some history in Penn State’s rout of Villanova last weekend, becoming the first quarterback in the program’s history to throw for 400 yards in a game on U.S. soil. Christian Hackenberg did it in 2014, but that was in Dublin, Ireland against UCF. So, there’s a bold-face line on the resume for Clifford, who against ranked opponents Auburn and Wisconsin totaled 527 yards and three touchdowns. That total is fourth among all Power 5 passers and is the best of anyone on an undefeated team. The biggest test for Clifford and the Nittany Lions awaits Oct. 9 when they travel to No. 5 Iowa, but first, he’ll face an Indiana defense that just gave up 365 yards and three scores through the air in surviving Western Kentucky.

Sell: Kenneth Walker III, Michigan State

The good news is Walker is still leading FBS at 138.5 rushing yards per game and 554 overall. The bad news is he was just held to 61 yards on 19 carries by Nebraska. The Cornhuskers had just yielded 194 on the ground to Oklahoma the week before and were averaging 156.2 through three weeks, but limited Walker to a season-low 3.21 per carry that was 6.4 yards below what he was averaging going in. Expect Walker to get back on track quickly. This week’s opponent, Western Kentucky, is 120th vs. the rush (224.6 ypg) and with the Spartans’ biggest games still to come, Walker remains a factor in this race. But in chasing a standout performance against then-No. 24 Miami, when he had 172 yards rushing, with a lackluster one, may have already cashed in his mulligan before we’ve even hit October.

Buy: Bijan Robinson, Texas

Robinson is beginning to gain some steam after being held to 69 yards by Arkansas on Sept. 11. He rushed for 137 yards on 18 carries in a win over Texas Tech as part of a day in which he had 191 yards of offense on 20 touches, that coming after 127 yards and three scores vs. Rice the week before. Robinson could be in for another big day with TCU up next for the Longhorns. The Horned Frogs were just torched for 595 yards in a loss to SMU, including 350 on the ground. Keep up his momentum there and Robinson has a chance to supplant Rattler in the Big 12 contender pecking order when Texas and Oklahoma clash on Oct. 9.

Sell: Spencer Rattler, Oklahoma

Who would have thought harping on Rattler would become a weekly thing? We’ve reached the point where Oklahoma fans are chanting for backup Caleb Williams to play over the preseason Heisman favorite. It’s now been three weeks since Rattler went over 300 yards passing and the Sooners offense, which was averaging 43 points per game a season ago, has scored 16 (West Virginia) and 23 (Nebraska) the past two weeks in narrow victories. At some point, you have to think Rattler goes off with a big performance that reminds everyone how explosive he and Lincoln Riley’s offense can be, and there’s a chance it could come Saturday. Kansas State was burned for 344 yards through the air by Oklahoma State last weekend, dropping the Wildcats to last in the Big 12 against the pass.

Buy: Jake Haenar, Fresno State

First in FBS with 1,842 passing yards and tied for second with 15 touchdown passes, Haenar is putting up worthy numbers, including 378 yards and five touchdowns last time out vs. UNLV. He also has a victory over a Top-25 opponent under his belt, with the Bulldogs taking down then-No. 13 UCLA on Sept. 18. While he and Fresno State did suffer a narrow loss to Oregon — 31-24 on Sept. 4 in Eugene — he still got to the Ducks for 298 yards that day. That performance is looking better and better as Oregon has climbed up to No. 3 in the AP Top 25. The Bulldogs have cracked the rankings at No. 22 and Haenar has some opportunities to keep doing damage in the Mountain West schedule, including this weekend against Hawaii’s 102nd-ranked defense.

Sell: Malik Willis, Liberty

The extreme long shot had just a few opportunities to build his campaign outside of an independent schedule heavy on C-USA and Sun Belt opponents. He came up short in that first chance, his turnover with just under four minutes remaining allowing Syracuse to kick a game-winning field goal as time expired. Willis did throw for three touchdowns, moving him into a tied for 10th in the nation with 10 in all, and he ranks eighth with a 187.1 efficiency rating. He can still make a splash when the Flames face No. 13 Ole Miss on Nov. 6, and the NFL draftniks still love him, but Willis’ fringe Heisman hopes are all but over after falling to the Orange.

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