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Southern California sophomore quarterback Caleb Williams won the Heisman Memorial Trophy as college football’s most outstanding player on Saturday night, beating three other finalists, all starting quarterbacks whose teams are in the College Football Playoff.
Quarterbacks have now won 19 of the 22 Heismans handed out this century. Only a trio of Alabama stars – Mark Ingram (2009), Derrick Henry (2015) and DeVonta Smith (2020) – have interrupted the quarterback stranglehold on the award.
Williams is USC’s first Heisman Trophy winner since Matt Leinart in 2004, tying the school with Notre Dame, Ohio State and Oklahoma with seven winners – the most all-time. Eight Trojans have actually received the award, but the 2005 trophy won by Reggie Bush was later vacated.
Lincoln Riley has now coached three of the last six Heisman winners, following Baker Mayfield in 2017 and Kyler Murray in 2018 while he was on the sidelines at Oklahoma.
Williams, the sixth sophomore to win the Heisman, received 544 first-place votes and 2,031 total points. TCU senior quarterback Max Duggan was the runner-up (188, 1,420). Ohio State junior quarterback C.J Stroud (37, 539) was third, followed by Georgia senior quarterback Stetson Bennett (36, 349).
FINAL HEISMAN VOTE TOTALS
“I may be standing here today, but ya’ll get to go to the College Football Playoffs. Guess you can’t win them all,“ Williams said after winning the award, drawing laughter from the crowd at Lincoln Center.
