Heisman Trophy Predictions 2026: Odds, Best Bets & Expert Picks

All of a sudden, we're into August and the college football season is literally right around the corner. As such, it’s time for us to discuss the NCAAF futures markets. We’ve already provided you with our NCAAF National Championship best bet, so it’s time to pivot to the player side of things and discuss the Heisman market. Let’s break down the college football odds for the 2026 Heisman race before ending with a couple best bets and a longshot pick. Also, be on the lookout for more college football news leading up to Week 0, including conference champion picks for every league in the FBS.

2026 NCAAF Heisman Trophy Odds

Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook and available at time of publishing. Be sure to check all available sportsbooks for the best price before locking in any futures. The market is extremely fluid and will move frequently prior to the start of the season.

• QB CJ Carr (Notre Dame) +700
• QB Arch Manning (Texas) +800
• QB Darian Mensah (Miami) +1000
• QB Dante Moore (Oregon) +1200
• QB Julian Sayin (Ohio State) +1300
• QB Trinidad Chambliss (Ole Miss) +1300
• WR Jeremiah Smith (Ohio State) +1500
• QB Josh Hoover (Indiana) +1600
• QB Gunner Stockton (Georgia) +2200
• QB Jayden Maiava (USC) +2500
• QB Sam Leavitt (LSU) +2500
• QB John Mateer (Oklahoma) +2500
• QB Keelon Russell (Alabama) +2500
• QB Marcel Reed (Texas A&M) +3000
• WR Malachi Toney (Miami) +3500
• QB LaNorris Sellers (South Carolina) +4000
• QB Bryce Underwood (Michigan) +4000
• QB Will Hammond (Texas Tech) +4500
• Everyone else +5000 or longer

Since 2000, a quarterback has won the Heisman 21 times, including eight of the last 10 years. DeVonta Smith and Travis Hunter were the only non-quarterbacks to win the prestigious award over the last decade, while a running back has not won since Derrick Henry did in 2015. Not to mention, only one full-time defender has won the award ever – Charles Woodson in 1997. As such, the top of the oddsboard is littered with quarterbacks, with Jeremiah Smith and Malachi Toney being the only non-quarterbacks with odds shorter than 100/1. 

If you have paid attention to college football at all over the last decade, you probably have heard rumblings that the Heisman Trophy has become more an award for the quarterback on the best team rather than an award for the best overall player in the sport. However, recent history does a good job of disputing that. Before Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza won the award last year, a two-way player from Colorado in Hunter won, which came on the heels of back-to-back wins by a pair of quarterbacks from teams that did not make the playoffs in Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams. Speaking of quarterbacks, each of the last four to win the award were transfers. Moreover, only one of the preseason betting favorites has lifted the Heisman Trophy since 2014.

2026 Heisman Trophy Best Bet: QB Arch Manning (Texas) +800

You probably rolled your eyes as soon as you read the pick, and I completely get it. Picking Manning doesn’t necessarily feel sexy, but I would argue it’s heady. For my money, Manning comes into this season with the best compliment of assets in the country compared to the other quarterbacks atop the Heisman list, headlined by transfer wide receiver Cam Coleman – who put up over 1,300 yards and scored 13 touchdowns in two seasons on a broken Auburn offense with mediocre-at-best quarterback play. Coleman will join Ryan Wingo, who returns after hauling in 54 passes for 834 yards and 7 scores, as well as Emmett Mosley V, rounding out what is a three-headed monster of a wide-receiver core.

Another feather in Manning’s cap is his ability to not only scramble from pressure, but turn on the jets and hurt defenses with his legs. He is a bona fide runner that showcased home-run upside with explosive runs against San Jose State, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Michigan last year. In fact, if you remove Manning’s 23 sacks and 138 yards lost from those sacks, Manning had 69 rush attempts for 537 yards – an average of 7.78 yards per carry. Behind an offensive line consisting of four pieces that played at least 800 snaps last year, he should be in line for another big year statistically. 

Last season was Manning’s first as a full-time starter, and by the end of the season, he was carrying the offense on his back in any way that was needed. Across five games from November 1 on, Manning threw for 1,368 yards, 11 touchdowns and just one interception, while he scored another four times on the ground with over 200 rushing yards. With a full season under his belt, I’m expecting him to look much better against the top defenses on his schedule like Ohio State and Oklahoma, both of whom he will see by Week 6. If he puts up big performances in either of those games, let alone both, he’s going to be near the top of the Heisman oddsboard all season long – assuming he doesn’t trip up elsewhere. If you’re swimming around the idea of betting Manning in the Heisman market, and you think the Longhorns will beat the Buckeyes in Austin in Week 2, then you really should bet this now. 

2026 Heisman Trophy Best Bet: QB Gunner Stockton (Georgia) +2200

Unlike Manning, Gunner Stockton does not have an elite supporting cast around him. The Georgia offense is vastly talented, don’t get me wrong, but a ton of production was lost with Zachariah Branch, Colbie Young, Dillon Bell, Oscar Delp and Noah Thomas – five of Georgia’s top-six pass-catchers – all moving on to the NFL. If the Bulldogs are going to be in the national championship picture, which oddsmakers very much expect them to be, it’s going to be through the playmaking ability of Stockton, a reliable run game and a fierce defensive front seven. Of course, running backs and defenders generally don’t win the Heisman, so the natural path is to look at Stockton at a very fair price of +2200 if you’re bullish on Georgia. 

In his first full season as a starter, Stockton put up 2,894 yards with 24 touchdowns and just five interceptions. As a pure runner, he carried the ball more than 110 times, accumulating more than 530 rushing yards and 10 scores, so he has playmaking ability with his legs just like Manning, which is always a trait I love to target in the Heisman Trophy race. Now in his second season as a starter, I’m looking for him to improve on his pocket awareness and deep-ball accuracy, as he suffered from the most dropped passes in the SEC a season ago despite all the talent in the pass-catching group. All things considered, it wouldn’t surprise me if Stockton put together a year that leaves some analysts comparing him to Tim Tebow. The similarities are already there if you look hard enough.

2026 Heisman Trophy Longshot Bet: QB LaNorris Sellers (South Carolina) +4000

The term “longshot” may be subjective, but when it comes to the Heisman futures market, I consider anything longer than 40/1 a true longshot. Honestly, once you get longer than 25/1, so much has to go right for your pick to even make it to New York as a Heisman finalist, much less win the award. Having said that, I’m keeping the unintentional SEC theme going and locking in LaNorris Sellers as my longshot, specifically ahead of Miami wide receiver Malachi Toney, for a few reasons. 

First, Sellers and the Gamecocks significantly upgraded at the offensive coordinator position in the offseason. That’s not to say Kendal Briles is the best signal-caller in the game, but compared to Mike Shula, bringing in Briles might turn out to be the single best offensive-coordinator hire at the power-conference level in terms of year-over-year improvement. Watching paint dry was more entertaining than South Carolina’s offense in 2025, which was vastly disappointing after their 2024 campaign. 

Second, the Gamecocks improved greatly on the offensive line. If the play-calling wasn’t the ugliest part of the offense last year, then the blocking was, and that unit should be much more physical and imposing this season – especially if transfer Jacarrius Peak avoids missing time after an off-season injury. Finally, Sellers has something to prove. He went into last season as a dark-horse first-round NFL pick, but that fizzled quickly after being roughed up by Vanderbilt early in the season and never really regaining his aura. Sure, the play-calling and blocking were horrendous, but he also held the ball way too long – probably trying to re-create the magic of his 2024 season. In a new and unequivocally better system, expect Sellers to look more like the Superman that he was in 2024. If the Gamecocks are anywhere near the College Football Playoff discussion, it’s going to be because of Sellers, and he’s going to be much shorter than 40/1 live if that happens.