2018 Heisman Trophy Winner Odds

The Heisman Trophy is awarded to the most outstanding player in college football each year.  Before the start of each season, oddsmakers set the odds for those players who are most likely to win the award.  Recently, being listed as the favorite in the preseason has been all but a guarantee not to win the Heisman (see our table at the bottom of the page for past results).

Alabama’s sophomore QB Tua Tagovailoa emerged as the front-runner in the preseason, but Stanford’s elite running back, Bryce Love has recently become the favorite.  It wouldn’t be surprising to see Tagovailoa at the top by the start of the season considering his play in last year’s championship game, plus just the fact that he is the projected starting quarterback on team with the best odds to win the college football playoff.

Just two of the last nine Heisman winners have been running backs, however, 2018 features are pair of backs in Stanford’s Bryce Love and Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor that are the among favorites to be voted the best player in college football.  If history is any indication, however, a quarterback from this list, or perhaps from outside of it, will emerge as a contender before the season has concluded.

The Change column shows any movement in the odds since our last update (7/11).  The last column, titled “Hesiman” represents the implied odds each player has to win the award at the given market odds.

2018 Heisman Trophy: Updated Odds to Win

Past Heisman Winners & Preseason Favorites Odds

If you are thinking about placing a wager on a player to win the Heisman, you may want to consider picking someone other than the favorite.  Since we started archiving these odds in 2009, no favorite to win prior to the season has ended up taking home the award.  In fact, many of the players who ended up winning were not listed with odds to win in the preseason, we’ve marked those players with an asterisk (*).

Perhaps most notably, Johnny Manziel in 2012 wasn’t even available to bet in futures markets until the eight week of the season.  At that time he had the sixth-best odds on the board at +1200, with Geno Smith listed as the favorite at -250 (Braxton Miller +500, Collin Klein +700, Matt Barkley +800, and DeAnthony Thomas +800 were all listed ahead of him as well).

Given the past results, you’re better off taking a player in the +2000 range than hoping the preseason favorite pays off.