Everything you need to know about the Heisman finalists

After a unique year in college football, a year in which there was no clear Heisman front-runner, the media has finally narrowed down the Heisman field to three players: Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey, Alabama running back Derrick Henry and Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson.

Derrick Henry is as close to a front runner as there is. Henry appears to be one of the most durable backs the game has ever seen. In his last two games, he has racked up 90 carries totaling for 460 yards. In their annual game against hated rival Auburn, the Crimson Tide handed Henry the ball an impressive 46 times. More notably, the team only ran 76 offensive plays, meaning that Henry touched the ball on nearly two-thirds of all offensive plays. Henry further proved his outstanding durability in that game when out of the team’s 21 offensive plays in the fourth quarter, 19 of them were runs by Henry. Playing in the SEC means Henry has certainly played against good defenses. He averaged 180.1 yards per game against top 25 foes this year. However, multiple arguments can be made against his campaign; for example, couldn’t any other top-tier back excel like Henry if they were given his volume?

The dark horse of the Heisman race is certainly Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey. He’s much more of dual threat than Derrick Henry; even though he has 139 fewer rushing yards, McCaffrey more than makes up for it with his 303 more total yards. McCaffrey can be a big problem for defenses when he’s catching the ball, in addition to him running the ball. McCaffrey left the voters with quite a performance to think about in the PAC 12 (Pacific Athletic Conference) championship game, his final game of the year. He ran 32 times for 207 yards, caught four passes for 104 yards and even threw for a touchdown. Adding his kick return and punt return yards into the mix, McCaffrey ended up with 461 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns on the night–not only breaking Stanford’s single game all-purpose yards record, but also shattering Hall of Famer Barry Sanders’ season all-purpose yards record. McCaffrey’s stats are certainly impressive, but critics of McCaffrey will point out that he is in the worst power-five conference, meaning the competition he faces is relatively weak.

Lastly, there’s the lone quarterback in the Heisman race, Deshaun Watson. He’s the best player on the top-ranked team this year, a team that has beaten three top-10 opponents thanks to Watson’s leadership. On the year, Watson has thrown for an astounding 3,512 yards and is incredibly efficient, completing 69.5% of his passes. Watson is also a dangerous dual-threat; he was the Clemson Tigers’ second leading rusher this season, amassing 881 rushing yards. Perhaps Watson’s most impressive stat is his 41 total touchdowns. However, there are a couple knocks on the seemingly perfect quarterback. One is he didn’t have that signature Heisman performance, where he wins the player sets a record or makes a crazy play. More importantly, his numbers aren’t tops in the country, they’re just all-around good numbers.

When it’s all said and done, expect Christian McCaffrey to be the one taking home the Heisman on Saturday night. He would be the first running back to win the Heisman since Mark Ingram in 2009. He broke Barry Sanders’ record for most all-purpose yards, a record which stood for 27 years. At the end of the day, McCaffrey numbers are just too overwhelming to pass on.