Assessing ESPN’s Choice of Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele as a 2026 Heisman Contender

Does Cal quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele have a chance to win the Heisman Trophy in 2026?

Respected ESPN college football reporter Mark Schlabach thinks so. On Monday ESPN posted a story under Schlabach’s name that identified 18 players as contenders for the 2026 Heisman Trophy.

One of those 18 players was Sagapolutele, who will be a Golden Bears sophomore in 2026.

Let’s consider whether it makes sense to include Sagapolutele on this list, starting with ESPN’s comment about Sagapolutele:

Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, QB, California

2025 stats: 64.2% completion pct, 3,454 passing yards, 22 total touchdowns

There's a reason new Bears coach Tosh Lupoi took a late-night flight to Hawai'i to make sure Sagapolutele was staying at Cal. He was only the second true freshman in FBS history to pass for 200 yards or more in each of his first 11 starts. In the Bears' late-season upsets of then-No. 21 SMU and No. 15 Louisville, Sagapolutele passed for a combined 653 yards with six touchdowns and no picks.

That sounds promising, but let’s get down to the factors that make a player a Heisman Trophy winner.

No. 1

The player must play on a team that is ranked in the top 25 when the Heisman Trophy is presented, and it helps if he is ranked in the top 10.

Each of the past 56 Heisman Trophy winners played for a team that was ranked at the time of the Heisman presentation.

The last time a Heisman winner played for an unranked team was 1969, when running back Steve Owens won it while playing for a 6-4 Oklahoma team that began the season ranked No. 6. That was before social media and the endless stream of college football highlights that allow players to emerge as Heisman candidates halfway through the season.

So the question is, will Cal be ranked in the AP poll when the 2026 Heisman Trophy is presented next December?

That’s asking a lot from new Cal head coach Tosh Lupoi, especially since he’ll be working with a lot of players left from the Justin Wilcox era.

The Bears went 7-6 last season and 4-4 in the ACC, but Cal has not finished with a winning conference record since 2009.

Moreover, Cal has not been ranked in a final AP poll since 2006, when the Bears wound up 14th. It would be a major surprise if Cal ends up in the top 25 in 2026.

Fourteen of the 18 players on ESPN’s list of Heisman contenders will be playing for a team that finished the 2025 season in the top 25, and 11 of them will be on teams that were in the 12-team College Football Playoff.

The three outsiders besides Sagapolutele are quarterback Demond Williams Jr., who plays for a Washington team that went 9-4 and barely missed being ranked at the end; running back Ahmad Hardy, who plays for Missouri, which finished with an 8-5 record but was ranked for most of the 2025 season, and quarterback Drew Mestemaker, who will play for Oklahoma State, which went 1-11, but he played the 2025 season at North Texas, which finished in the top 25.

So Sagapolutele and Cal are fighting an uphill battle, which requires the Bears to finish in the top 25 in 2026.

However, you can look at this a different way: If Cal does finish in the top 25, that surprising development would heap loads of praise on Sagapolutele for getting the Bears there. Heisman voters love players who emerge as stars at unlikely places.

Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia was such a player in 2025, when he finished second in the Heisman voting. Vanderbilt was not one of the 49 teams that received votes in the 2025 AP preseason poll, and the Commodores were picked to finish 13th in the 16-team SEC in the preseason conference poll.

Pavia was given credit for Vanderbilt’s unlikely run to a final No. 15 AP ranking, just the third time since 1948 that Vandy was ranked in the final AP poll.

Sagapolutele could be that kind of program-changing player.

No. 2

A player does not need to earn major accolades the previous season to be a Heisman winner.

Fernando Mendoza was not a first-team, second-team or third-team all-ACC selection in his final season at Cal in 2024. He was not even one of the two ACC quarterbacks who received honorable mention that year.

But as we all know Mendoza won the 2025 Heisman Trophy at Indiana, and the voting was not particularly close.

Heisman runnerup Pavia was not named to the first-, second- or third-team All-SEC squads in 2024.

Sagapolutele was not named to the first-, second- or third-team all-ACC teams in 2025, nor was he one of the two quarterbacks who received honorable mention.

It doesn’t matter. In fact, it might help his 2026 Heisman campaign to emerge as Mendoza and Pavia did.

No. 3

The Heisman Trophy winner is almost always a quarterback

Fifty years ago running backs usually won the Heisman because college football was a ground-game sport. These days college football is based on passing, and the quarterback has far more impact on a team’s success than any other position.

Thirteen of the past 16 Heisman winners have been quarterbacks. The three exceptions were two who played on national-championship Alabama squads and a two-way star.

Twelve of the 18 players on ESPN’s list of Heisman candidates are quarterbacks, and Sagapolutele is one of them.

It seems the only thing between Sagapolutele and Heisman candidacy is a final top-25 ranking. Cal has brought in some receiving talent via the transfer portal – wide receivers Chase Hendricks and Ian Strong and tight end Dorian Thomas – that could help Sagapolutele and Cal reach that status.

Cal won't be picked to win the ACC title in 2026, and CBS Sports last week predicted the Golden Bears would finish ninth.

Granted, Sagapolutele is a long shot, but not any longer than Diego Pavia was.

Here are ESPN’s 17 other 2026 Heisman Trophy contenders:

---Jeremiah Smith, wide receiver, Ohio State

---Julian Sayin, quarterback, Ohio State

---Dante Moore, quarterback, Oregon

---Gunnar Stockton, quarterback, Georgia

---Malachi Toney, wide receiver, Miami

---Arch Manning, quarterback, Texas

---Brendan Sorsby, quarterback, Texas Tech

---Darian Mensah, quarterback, Miami

---Trinidad Chambliss, quarterback, Mississippi