Officially, it’s a three-man race for the most prestigious trophy in all of college football. Unofficially, it’ll be a one-man show right up until this weekend’s official coronation.
Monday evening, it was announced that there will be just three finalists for the 2017 Heisman Trophy who get the trip to New York City this year’s award ceremony Saturday. Those finalists are Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson, Stanford running back Bryce Love and Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield.
Mayfield is the overwhelming favorite to claim the 2017 version of the stiff-armed trophy, with sportsbooks across the country pulling betting on the award off the board because the 2016 finalist has been viewed as a lock for the honor for nearly a month.
Jackson, of course, is the reigning Heisman winner. He could become just the second two-time winner of the award, but, yeah, probably won’t.
In fact, the only question seemingly remaining is whether or not Mayfield can claim the largest margin of victory in becoming the sixth Sooner to win the award. The largest margin of victory belongs to USC running back O.J. Simpson, who was 1,750 points clear of the field in the voting for the 1968 award; the greatest percentage of votes was Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith, who earned 91.6 percent of the vote in 2006.
Simpson, incidentally, earned 80.6 percent of the vote in the year he won the award.
Quarterback @baker_mayfield6 of @OU_Football is just the 7th player to finish in top 5 of the Heisman vote 3 times, joining legends Davis & Blanchard of Army, Doak Walker of SMU, A. Griffin of Ohio State, Herschel Walker of Georgia & Tim Tebow of Fla #Heisman2017 #HeismanWeek
— The Heisman Trophy (@HeismanTrophy) December 5, 2017
