Heisman Hopefuls launches, giving fans first official vote
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- Heisman Hopefuls launched as a data, storytelling, and fan voting platform that lets fans cast the first official vote in the Heisman Trophy process, with player data and EA Sports College Football ratings updated regularly.
- Jeff Price, Heisman CEO, said fan surveys showed college football audiences want more data on more players and more ways to engage with the award throughout the season, framing the platform as a way to spotlight players at every position.
- Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Center, led by director Ron Yurko, is building a dynamic weighting methodology so that daily fan votes carry different weight each week based on data observed during the season.
- Last year's fan vote was won by Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, with Nebraska's Emmett Johnson second and Indiana's Fernando Mendoza, the overall winner, third — Mendoza's top-three fan finish aligning with his overall ballot success.
- The fan vote winner will be unveiled live on ESPN during conference championship weekend, and the top three finishers will be recorded as the first official Heisman ballot.
- Heisman partnered with Next League, Yangaroo, and CLC alongside CMSAC to build the platform, and acknowledged that this season's statistics will be limited to more basic player data rather than advanced analytics.
Why it matters: Heisman has historically been a media-and-postseason-award operation, and now the first official ballot belongs to a fan vote whose weights are calibrated by a Carnegie Mellon analytics team — effectively creating a new primary gatekeeper in the Heisman process ahead of the conference championship weekend ESPN reveal.
Ask SkimNews
