5 preseason Heisman Trophy contenders who may fall out of the race with a Week 2 flop

Over the course of my fandom of the best sport on the planet, one of the best things about following along with the wacky, weird and wonderful world of college football is that nobody has any earthly idea what will happen in any given week. These are 18-to-23-year-olds for the most part, none of which have fully formed brains yet. Eventually, the cream will rise to the top, but until then, watch out!

Unless you root for a flagship public school in Florida, your team still has a chance this season. Unfortunately, there is a decent chance your favorite team's best player is not going to be good enough to get an invitation to the Heisman Trophy ceremony in New York in early December. Even though we thought this skill position player might be good enough, oftentimes they come up short.

So what I want to do today is highlight five preseason Heisman Trophy contenders who need a great showing in Week 2 before being eliminated from serious contention for the sport's highest individual honor. It mostly goes to quarterbacks, but even now and then, a running back or a wide receiver will buck the trend. All I want is to be proven wrong when it comes to these five college stars of note here.

Let's start with my preseason pick to win the Heisman. He was fine, but his team has to play better.

5. Oregon Ducks QB Dillon Gabriel

One of the biggest shockers of the weekend that was was how uninsipred the Oregon Ducks looked vs. the FCS Idaho Vandals last Saturday. Oregon was my pick to get to the national championship and face Georgia, with quarterback Dillon Gabriel winning the Heisman Trophy. While his stats looked fine, points were at a premium in this game for Oregon. Now, they will have a tough matchup in Boise State.

If Gabriel and the Ducks offense looks pedestrian again vs. the Broncos this week, there is a chance they might lose. Boise State was Cody Williams' pick to win the Group of Five during our many 2024 season previews over on False Start. They were my pick to win the Mountain West, challenging Liberty and Memphis to win the Group of Five. There is also another Heisman contender in this game.

Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty literally carried Boise State to victory last week over Georgia Southern. I don't think he will replicate a six-touchdown performance vs. Dan Lanning's defense. To me, if he is the best player on the field, even in defeat, I would have a hard time voting Gabriel No. 1 with a bullet if I had a Heisman Trophy ballot. He must show us he has been in college for six years.

Oregon should prevail, but this has the makings of a potential trap game on the Ducks' season slate.

4. Notre Dame Fighting Irish QB Riley Leonard

I get that it was a tough game in a challenging environment, going up against your former head coach on a new team, but I don't feel good at all about Riley Leonard's chances of getting to New York now. He may have outdueled a fellow Heisman pretender in Texas A&M quarterback Conner Weigman, but it didn't feel like we were watching two first-round quarterbacks going at it. It was all about defense.

Look. Leonard will have his shot at redemption in the coming weeks and months. However, if he looks like he still plays at Duke vs. Northern Illinois this week, he may end up being the next Sam Hartman in South Bend. Even the former conductor of the Wake Forest Slow Mesh was able to light up Navy like a Christmas tree during his Golden Domer debut. Leonard just looked rather pedestrian out there.

I think as the season progresses Leonard's stock will continue to rise far beyond what it is actually worth because of the position he plays on the team he plays for. He could end up in New York for all I know, just like he could be a first-round pick. Again, Texas A&M might be a team of quality this season, but the Heisman Trophy is more about numbers than it even is about narrative. Time to flip the script.

Leonard needs to assert himself as the best player on the field vs. Northern Illinois to get back in this.

3. Kansas State Wildcats QB Avery Johnson

This is the one I was most concerned about. The talent Avery Johnson possesses is undeniable, but he was playing with a sense of reckless abandon I often have a hard time stomaching. While the Kansas State Wildcats did inevitably prevail over the UT-Martin Skyhawks, Johnson looked like a high schooler playing high school football at times leading Chris Klieman's attack. He is a sophomore!

Kansas State is many people's picks to win the Big 12 and make the College Football Playoff. Cody Williams still has K-State getting to Arlington and winning, but I had my projected Big 12 runner-up to Utah falling out of the playoff picture entirely in this victory. Inexperience has me worried. Johnson needs to get better quickly to hold serve with the likes of Noah Fifita, Cam Rising and Alan Bowman.

Even though I fully expect for K-State to improve to 2-0 on the season after the Wildcats' next game, they are going up against one of the better programs in the Group of Five in Tulane. Although Willie Fritz may be coaching that steaming pile of crap in conference called Houston, Jon Sumrall is an incredible on-the-rise head-coaching candidate for the Greenies. Did you see what he did at Troy?

Simply put, Klieman needs to put Johnson in advantageous situations to succeed vs. Sumrall here.

2. North Carolina State Wolfpack QB Grayson McCall

To be fair, I am not entirely sure if Grayson McCall is still even a Heisman Trophy candidate at this point. Just when we put all of our chips into the middle of the table to go all-in on the North Carolina State Wolfpack, they looked pretty mediocre vs. the Western Carolina Catamounts. The Western Carolina Catamounts! It may have been McCall's first game in the Power Four, as it sure looked like it.

With the Wolfpack playing across the state in Charlotte vs. the SEC playoff contender Tennessee Volunteers this week, all eyes will be on McCall's arm and Dave Doeren's team. We know that Nico Iamaleava will be tasked with putting up as many points as he can in Josh Heupel's Air Raid offshoot. He looked great for Rocky Top vs. the Chattanooga Mocs. It was FCS competition, but he still shined.

In a similar situation as Dillon Gabriel faces in Oregon's next game vs. the Boise State Broncos, McCall cannot afford to get Outshined like Soundgarden vs. a fellow Heisman contenders team. Will McCall break his rusty cage and run down to stillwater and ride a pack of dogs, or will he fall on black days again? We might be alive in the Superunknown this college season, but McCall feels fraudulent.

In my eyes, in dispose, in disguise as no one knows, when can we really ever trust the Wolfpack?

1. Kansas Jayhawks QB Jalon Daniels

This is a total bummer, but I get it. Lost over the course of last weekend was how lethargic the Kansas Jayhawks offense looked in its first game without Andy Kotelnicki. The often-injured, but electrifying quarterback for KU in Jalon Daniels looked like just a guy vs. Lindenwood. The stats were not in his favor, unlike Drew Allar, who seems to be flourishing now he has Kotelnicki in his ear at Penn State.

Truth be told, I know that Lance Leipold is still a great coach, that Daniels is an effective Big 12 quarterback and that Devin Neal can run. However, I am beginning to wonder of Kotelnicki will prove to be the secret sauce that Leipold has been bottling up for years. I still see a world where Kansas could be good enough to get to New York, but Daniels may have already cost his shot at a Heisman.

Furthermore, the Jayhawks have to go up against the always-feisty Illinois Fighting Illini. They may have a finite ceiling under Bret Bielema's watch, but Illinois is never beneath muddying it up a bit in pursuit of victory. Kansas is the better team on paper, but do you think Bielema cares about paper at this point of his coaching career? He knows defense, which could be key in slowing down Daniels.

Will Daniels get back to being what he once was, or will he continue to be ravaged by major injuries?