Who will be crowned best college football player in 2017?

It’s been a little more than 15 weeks since Louisville’s Lamar Jackson took home college football’s most notorious individual prize – the Heisman Trophy. While we are still over five months away from meaningful football, prognosticators, experts, and especially odds makers, are at work attempting to narrow the infinite field of superb collegiate stars. Who will be the next to earn the hardware, joining a brotherhood that started with Chicago’s Jay Berwanger and continued this past year with Jackson?

It could be anybody putting on the pads on Saturday’s this coming Autumn. Was Jackson on the radar at this point in 2016? Absolutely not. Few had heard of the Cardinals QB that started eight times and threw 12 TDs and 8 INTs as a freshman in 2015. Following his early season performance as a sophomore in 2017, his name exploded, culminating in a trip to Times Square this past December. Of course, sometimes it is easy. The ultimate winners in 2014 (Oregon QB Marcus Mariota) and 2015 (Alabama RB Derrick Henry) were among the early favorites in their respective seasons.

Who are the options in 2017 that we could see rise to the pinnacle of the sport? The top picks from a variety of web articles include, in no particular order, Florida State QB Deondre Francois, Penn State RB Saquon Barkley, Oklahoma QB Baker Mayfield (who may have issues with voters that include the Heisman mantra “excellence with integrity” after his recent arrest), reigning winner Jackson, USC QB Sam Darnold, Ohio State QB J.T. Barrett, Washington QB Jake Browning, and the Alabama duo of RB Bo Scarborough and QB Jalen Hurts also make the shortlist.

Should Jackson win the Trophy in back-to-back campaigns, he’d be just the second player to do so, joining former Ohio State RB Archie Griffin, who won the award following the 1974 and 1975 seasons. Odds for the 2017 season have the defending champ as a favorite. However, with the Heisman being awarded 81 times to 80 different football stars, those odds aren’t in his favor.

-- Joe Mays, Host of The Bulldog Hour