Louisville men remain No. 1

Ohio State now No. 2 in basketball coaches poll

The weekly USA TODAY Sports Network Heisman survey takes the pulse of only a small sample of the electorate for college football’s top individual honor. But it certainly looks as if LSU quarterback Joe Burrow can safely start working on his acceptance speech.

The winner will be announced Saturday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).

Burrow will be in New York for that announcement, along with two other quarterbacks: Ohio State’s Justin Fields and Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts. All are transfers: Burrow from Ohio State, Fields from Georgia, Hurts from Alabama.

They were announced as finalists Monday night, as was Ohio State defensive end Chase Young.

Burrow, the signature player on the nation’s topranked team heading into the College Football Playoff, has been the odds-on favorite to win the award for the latter half of the campaign. In our weekly survey of 21 Heisman voters who work for USA TODAY Network properties, Burrow has been projected as the winner by every one since he led the Tigers to their seasondefining win at Alabama in mid-November.

After adding four more touchdown passes to his ledger in the Southeastern Conference championship game victory against Georgia, he enters the Playoff with 48 scoring throws to just six interceptions and a total of 4,715 yards through the air. He’s also averaging 10.7 yards per pass attempt with a completion rate of 77.9%. He also has run for 289 yards and three more touchdowns. And, oh yeah, he even added some receiving yards to his stats this week when he secured a pass batted back to him and managed to turn it into a 16-yard gain.

Fields moved into a second-place tie this week with Hurts after he rallied the Buckeyes to a win against Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game. Hurts is bidding to become the third consecutive Sooners’ QB to take home the statue.