Three Ohio State players finished in the top nine of this year’s Heisman Trophy vote, with wide receiver Jeremiah Smith in sixth place and safety Caleb Downs in ninth place. ESPN revealed these rankings during a show unveiling the fifth-through-10th-place finishers in the 2025 Heisman Trophy vote.
This achievement is significant, as it marks the first time a school has three top-10 finishers in the Heisman Trophy vote since Alabama's DeVonta Smith, Mac Jones, and Najee Harris all finished in the top five in 2020. It's also the fourth time Ohio State has had three top-10 finishers in the Heisman vote, previously achieving that feat in 2019 (Justin Fields, Chase Young, and J.K. Dobbins), 1973 (John Hicks, Archie Griffin, and Randy Gradishar), and 1969 (Rex Kern, Jim Otis, and Jack Tatum).
Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin is one of four finalists for this year’s Heisman, which will be awarded Saturday night during a ceremony in New York, which will air on ABC from 7-8 p.m. Smith, who has 80 catches for 1,086 yards and 11 touchdowns this season, is the only receiver in the top 10 of this year’s Heisman vote. He is also a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award, which honors college football’s top pass-catcher and will be awarded Friday (7-9 p.m.) during ESPN’s College Football Awards Show.
Downs, the leader of Ohio State’s top-ranked defense, is one of two defensive players in the top 10 along with Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, who finished fifth in the Heisman vote. Downs won the Lott IMPACT Trophy earlier this week. He is also a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award, which honors college football’s best defensive back, and the Chuck Bednarik Award, which honors college football’s best defensive player; both of those awards will also be awarded during Friday’s College Football Awards Show.
It's anticipated that Sayin will finish somewhere between second and fourth, as Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza is viewed as the frontrunner to win the Heisman after he led Indiana to a Big Ten Championship Game win over Sayin and the Buckeyes last weekend, securing the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff for the 13-0 Hoosiers. The other top-10 finishers in this year’s Heisman vote were Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton (7th), Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss (8th), and Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King (10th).
