- Four touchdowns and 217 receiving yards moved Jeremiah Smith from +1200 to +350, the shortest Heisman price on the board.
- Darian Mensah is second at +400 with 94 completions in 106 attempts, 14 touchdowns and no interceptions through four games.
- Trinidad Chambliss fell from +325 to +1000 after Ole Miss lost 52-28 at Florida despite his 298 passing yards.
- DeVonta Smith of Alabama in 2020 was the last full-time receiver to win the Heisman, the first since Desmond Howard in 1991.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Jeremiah Smith now leads the Heisman board as the new favorite at +350, in from +1200 a week ago, after the Ohio State Buckeyes junior caught four touchdown passes in a 42-19 rout of the Illinois Fighting Illini on Saturday. Darian Mensah of the Miami Hurricanes holds second at +400, while Trinidad Chambliss of the Ole Miss Rebels, last week’s +325 favorite, has drifted to +1000 odds.
Four Touchdowns Rewrite The Board
Smith caught 12 passes for 217 yards and four touchdowns, tying an Ohio State single-game record. His last score, a 26-yard catch with 10:07 left, made it 35-13. Quarterback Julian Sayin threw for 367 yards, and Smith caught 217 of them. Smith leads the country with 617 receiving yards and has seven touchdown catches through four games.
The move on the college football props Heisman board was close to a straight swap. Smith gained 14.5 percentage points of implied probability against last week’s board, and Chambliss lost 14.4. A $100 bet on Smith at last week’s price wins $1,200, and at today’s price it wins $350, so the early number was the one worth having.
Smith is the third new Heisman favorite since Sept. 14, after Mensah that day and Chambliss on Sept. 22.
Voters Rarely Pick A Receiver
DeVonta Smith won the Heisman Trophy in 2020 as the first receiver to take the award since Desmond Howard in 1991, according to the Heisman Trust. Colorado’s Travis Hunter, who played cornerback and receiver, won in 2024. Jeremiah Smith finished sixth in last year’s voting with 84 points, behind his own quarterback, Sayin, who was fourth with 432.
Backing Jeremiah Smith at +350 is a bet that voters choose a full-time receiver again, something they have done once since Howard’s win.
The Board Behind Smith
The Heisman market on the football award props page has quarterbacks in five of the seven spots behind Smith, and only Smith and Miami’s Malachi Toney are receivers in the top eight.
| Player, Team | Odds | Implies |
|---|---|---|
| Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State | +350 | 22.2% |
| Darian Mensah, Miami | +400 | 20.0% |
| Kamario Taylor, Mississippi State | +700 | 12.5% |
| Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss | +1000 | 9.1% |
| Keelon Russell, Alabama | +1200 | 7.7% |
| CJ Carr, Notre Dame | +1400 | 6.7% |
| Jadan Baugh, Florida | +1400 | 6.7% |
| Malachi Toney, Miami | +2000 | 4.8% |
Kamario Taylor of the Mississippi State Bulldogs shortened from +1300 to +700 after throwing for 360 yards in a 31-24 win over the Missouri Tigers, and Keelon Russell of the Alabama Crimson Tide moved from +2800 to +1200 with 365 yards in a 49-18 win over the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Toney went the other way, from +1200 to +2000, even after six catches for 120 yards and a touchdown in Miami’s 52-3 win, which suggests the market wants a bigger night than that from a receiver.
Mensah Holds Second Without An Interception
Mensah’s price lengthened slightly, from +375 to +400, after he completed 23 of 27 passes for 338 yards and three touchdowns and ran for a fourth score against the Central Michigan Chippewas. His season completion rate is 88.7%, and he is the only quarterback in the top eight without an interception.
The gap between first and second is 2.2 points of implied probability, which one strong game Oct. 3 can erase. Miami’s four opponents so far have been Stanford, Florida A&M, Wake Forest and Central Michigan.
Chambliss Falls After The Florida Loss
Chambliss’s price lengthened from +325 to +1000 after Ole Miss lost 52-28 to the Florida Gators in Gainesville. He threw for 298 yards with a touchdown and an interception and ran for two more scores on seven carries for 44 yards. Florida ran for 302 yards and six touchdowns and Chambliss hurt his left thigh on Ole Miss’s second series.
His 298 yards sat within eight of his 305.5-yard season average, so the price moved on the result rather than the stat line. Ole Miss is 3-1 and 1-1 in the SEC, and Chambliss’s season line is 102 of 144 for 1,222 yards, eight touchdowns and three interceptions.
Iowa And Clemson Come Next
Ohio State plays at the Iowa Hawkeyes on Oct. 3 at 3:30 p.m. EDT on CBS, and Miami visits the Clemson Tigers the same day at 7:30 p.m. EDT on ABC, so the top two players on the board play road games four hours apart.
