Two Buckeyes among seven most-voted on Heisman poll

The Ohio State Buckeyes count six Heisman Memorial Trophy winners in their storied history, including Archie Griffin, the award’s only two-time recipient. If college football fans’ opinion is a trustworthy barometer, then there’s a good chance that number could rise at the end of the current regular season.

Two sophomore Buckeyes appear among the top seven vote getters in a fan’s poll conducted online by the Heisman Trophy Trust. This is no moot exercise, either, as the winner of the collective fan vote at the end of the year will count officially as one official ballot in the race for the Heisman.

Quarterback Julian Sayin and wide receiver Jeremiah Smith are among players with most votes on the Week 9 leaderboard. Sayin is second, while Smith comes in at seventh. Both are worthy candidates.

Here’s a look at the first 2025 Heisman Fan Vote Leaderboard 👀🔥🏆

Make sure to vote at https://t.co/nJj0lViwSH or by creating a post on socials with the following⬇️

“@HeismanTrophy I want to vote for #PlayerName”

Fans may vote once per day on the website and once per day per… pic.twitter.com/0e88uFZHzN
— The Heisman Trophy (@HeismanTrophy) October 24, 2025

Sayin has been surging recently on the Heisman Trophy betting odds, and is now in third-place at BetMGM at +400 after starting the week on Monday tied in first-place at +300 with Alabama’s Ty Simpson and Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza. Simpson still stands at +300 at BetMGM, while Mendoza has been moved slightly to +325. Similarly, ESPNBet, Bet365, and FanDuel SportsBook all have the same +400 moneyline for Sayin, and all have him slightly behind Simpson and Mendoza.

Keep in mind that, just last week, Sayin was still at +1500 at BetMGM, but that was before a colossal performance that included for touchdown passes at Wisconsin last Saturday.

On the fan’s poll, however, Sayin is ahead of Mendoza and just behind Simpson, with 10.9 percent of the votes.

For the season, Sayin has completed 156 of 195 passing attempts (a completion percentage of 80.0) for 1,872 yards and 19 touchdowns against three picks.

A little further back comes in Smith, with 4.1 percent of the votes. Sure, the explosive wideout has been falling in terms of odds of winning the Heisman since being set at +900 last May, to his current moneyline of +2000, but there’s still time to turn the tide back in his favor.

Although he caught nine passes for 97 yards against the Badgers, it was his first game in the last six where he didn’t find the endzone. Nevertheless, his seven scores for the season are nothing to pout about.

Smith is still the only wide receiver among the top-eight vote getters in the fan’s poll, and the only wide receiver among the 11 players with the best odds overall, according to VegasInsider.com.

Smith has a moneyline of +3000 at Bet365 and +4000 at ESPNBet and FanDuel SportsBook.

Quarterbacks have won the award 20 times out of 25 in this century, and during that same period, only two wideouts were able to take the trophy, DeVonta Smith in 2020 and Travis Hunter last year, in a dual role.

No doubt, it’s an uphill battle for Smith at this stage, and it will be difficult for him to pile up gaudy numbers for the rest of the way, without Sayin piling up equally impressive stats as his quarterback. But, stranger things have happened before.

In any case, the tail-end of Ohio State’s schedule will be critical in determining who gets to take home the sport’s most recognizable statuette, with a visit to Ann Arbor and a likely showdown with Indiana in the Big Ten Championship before CFP play. If Ohio State comes out on top in both instances, still sporting an unblemished record, then it’s a good bet that we’ll see another Buckeye hoisting the Heisman once again.