Winston Looks Like Heisman Lock With 1 Game Left
NEW YORK (CBSMiami) – With just a few games left in the college football season, the Heisman Trophy appears to Florida State Seminoles quarterback Jameis Winston's to lose.
According to the latest USAToday Heisman Survey, Winston remains firmly in place as the top selection for college football's top award. Winston held steady this week receiving approximately 22 first-place votes and 68 points overall.
Through 12 games this season, Winston has completed 218 of 317 passes for 3,490 yards 35 touchdowns, and just eight interceptions. The redshirt freshman quarterback has set the school record for passing touchdowns in a season and is on the verge of finishing the season with the highest QB rating ever, currently sitting at 192.64.
While Winston remained entrenched in the top spot, there was quite a bit of movement behind him.
Last week, Boston College running back was in second-place, but after struggling last Saturday, he dropped to fifth overall. Defending Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel was shut down by Missouri and dropped to sixth on the list.
The new player in second-place comes from a non-qualifying BCS school, Northern Illinois. Quarterback Jordan Lynch led NIU to the BCS last year and will likely have NIU in the BCS again in 2013. But his numbers have been truly eye-popping this season, albeit against bad competition.
Lynch has completed 212 of 329 passes for 2,457 yards, 22 touchdowns, and five interceptions. But he's been even more lethal on the ground. The NIU quarterback has run the ball 248 times for 1,755 yards and 20 touchdowns in 2013.
Lynch's combined numbers are 4,212 yards of offense and 42 touchdowns, or roughly 351 yards per game and 7.3 yards per play, according to cfbstats.com.
Still, Lynch hasn't played a ranked team this year and NIU's toughest opponent was arguably the Iowa Hawkeyes in the first week of the season.
At this point, the only thing standing between Winston and the Heisman Trophy are the Duke Blue Devils and possible the Florida State Attorney's Office in Tallahassee.
