It’s strange for a quarterback to complete 18-21 passes for 243 yards and two touchdowns, engineer a clutch drive on the last possession of the game to win it and lose ground in the Heisman Trophy race, but that’s exactly what happened at Autzen Stadium Saturday.
Dillon Gabriel’s team was the winner, 37-34, but national attention fixated on sensational Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty, who carried the ball 25 times for 192 yards and three scores, including an electric 70-yard scoring run in the 4th quarter.
Enter “Heisman” in your search bar on X, and 8 of the first 10 posts you see will be about the 5-9, 215-pound dynamo from Jacksonville, Florida. Through two games, the Bronco senior has amassed 459 yards on 45 carries with 9 TDs, 10.2 yards per carry. That’s on pace for 2,754 rushing yards & 54 TDs in a full season, a blistering pace, but Jeanty’s fast enough, powerful enough and explosive enough to do exactly that.
His nine touchdowns are the most in the FBS for a running back over the first two games since Ricky Williams of Texas in his Heisman-winning season of 1998, who also had 9 that year. Willliams finished that campaign with 2,124 yards and 27 TDs.