Draft Kings: Heisman Odds

Hi everyone, welcome to week 0. As noted in the title, this is a post regarding Heisman odds and is sponsored by Draft Kings. Like last season, Draft Kings is sponsoring three posts a week on our site. They pay well and allow us to reward our writers with a significant pay boost during the season. If you don’t like them, I suggest not clicking on them and checking out the loads of other non-sponsored content we provide on a daily basis.

These posts won’t be going away.

That said, we’ll do our best to make them as Purdue centric as possible while at the same point, pulling back a little and checking out the rest of the college football landscape. If you want to talk about other teams, players or conferences, the comment section in this post would be an excellent place to do so.

Now, without further ado...

Interested in Betting?

You can find up-to-date Draft Kings Heisman odds here.

Week 0 Heisman Odds

The Defending Champ

Caleb Williams - QB - USC

Current Odds: +450

Williams is looking to repeat his Heisman Trophy winning 2022 season. He’s the odds on favorite, and for good reason. All Lincoln Riley does is pump out Heisman winners. His offense is tailor made for quarterbacks to put up absurd numbers. At the same time, this is a tough bet. Archie Griffin is still the only 2 time Heisman winner. Recently, underclassmen winning the award seems like the norm, but they’ve yet to repeat. Williams will try and break that streak.

Barring injury, I expect Williams to be ensconced at the top of the board through the first 6 games. I don’t see any team capable of challenging the Trojans early and Riley loves to pour it on and pad stats against bad teams. That makes October 14th the turning point for the Heisman this season. If Williams and the Trojans walk into Notre Dame stadium and ring up big numbers in front of the ghost of Knute Rockne and Touchdown Jesus, we may be looking at a repeat Heisman winner. There are other stumbling blocks like Utah, Washington and at Oregon later in the season, but those won’t get the same hype as the Notre Dame game.

The Projection

Jayden Daniels - QB - LSU

Current Odds: +1110

This is Daniels’s 5th season of college football, and up until now, nothing about his play has indicated a chance to win a Heisman. Don’t get me wrong, he’s been good, but nowhere close to Heisman good. Last season he threw for 2913 yards, 17 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. He also ran for 885 yards and 11 touchdowns. I see the allure of Daniels. He’s capable of putting up big numbers in the passing and run game, but he hasn’t yet.

Kyler Murray was a similar college quarterback and he threw for 4361 yards, 42 touchdowns and 7 interceptions in his Heisman season. He ran for another 1001 yards and 12 touchdowns. Daniels’s has a long way to go if he wants to put up enough in the passing game to stay in the Heisman race.

Working for him is exposure. LSU will be featured by the networks every week. In fact, you won’t have to wait long to see if he’s a viable Heisman candidate. The Bayou Bengals play Florida State on September 3rd. If he puts up big numbers and LSU wins the game, he’ll be in the conversation. If he struggles out of the gate, he might not be able to close late. Despite the hype, LSU only has 4 ranked teams on their schedule, and two of those teams (Ole Miss and A&M) are getting the SEC “benefit of the doubt” ranking to start the season. Of course, there is a home showdown on November 4th against Bama that could swing things in his favor or (assuming he’s still in the race) knock him out.

The Longshot

Hudson Card - QB - Purdue

Current Odds: +15000

Card made the preseason book based on a small sample size at Texas and the expectation that he puts up numbers in Graham Harrell’s offense. Do I think he’ll win the Heisman? Absolutely not. I do think he could insert himself into the 2024 conversation with a big 2023 season against a daunting schedule. Purdue gets both Ohio State and Michigan this season. If he performs well against both, I could see the Heisman hype in 2024 being reasonable. Not an early front runner, but closer to the +1500 odds tier than his current 150,00 tier Purdue’s schedule should be more navigable and if Card balls out this season, there will be a line of transfer portal skill players looking to ride the wave.

Obviously this is all speculation on my part, but hey, that’s all we have at the moment.

Interested in Betting?

You can find up-to-date Draft Kings Heisman odds here.

Odds/lines subject to change. T&Cs apply. See draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.