With just three games remaining in the regular season, Dillon Gabriel sits third in the Heisman Trophy race, according to DraftKings. The only guys currently ahead of the Oregon quarterback are Miami's Cam Ward and Colorado's Travis Hunter.
There's still a lot of work to do.
Last week before the Michigan win, Gabriel was considered the top Heisman candidate on the betting apps and you would think that his 294 yards and a touchdown through the air along with a rushing score would be enough to keep that spot for at least another week, but he was overtaken by another quarterback and a two-way player.
So that begs the question: what does Gabriel need to do in his final three games to win the Heisman?
It's actually a valid question and for the first time in a while, there's truly no dominant player in college football so comparing Gabriel to past Heisman-winning quarterbacks' numbers wouldn't make a ton of sense, but it would help in terms of showing what it would take in a normal year.
Here are the past five Heisman-winning quarterbacks' stats:
Jayden Daniels (2023): 3,812 yards, 40 TDs, 4 INTs
Caleb Williams (2022): 4,537 yards, 42 TDs, 5 INTs
Bryce Young (2021): 4,872 yards, 47 TDs, 7 INTs
Joe Burrow (2019): 5.671 yards, 60 TDs, 6 INTs
Kyler Murray (2018): 4,361 yards, 42 TDs, 7 INTs
And before those guys, the last Oregon quarterback to win the award was Marcus Mariota in 2014 when he had 4,454 yards, 42 touchdowns, and four interceptions.
Right now, Gabriel has 2,665 yards, 19 touchdowns, and five interceptions. He also has six rushing scores and a completion rate of about 75 percent. He has great numbers, but he needs a video game-like finish to the regular season if he wants to win the coveted award.
In my opinion, Ward is his biggest competition right now as the Miami quarterback has just over 3,000 yards and 29 touchdown passes. This means that Gabriel needs to probably average 3-4 touchdown passes a game over the final three and keep his interceptions to 1-2 while averaging around 350-400 yards per game. Oh, and he has to keep using his legs.
To be safe, if Gabriel averages 400 yards and three touchdowns per game over his final three contests, I would think the Heisman would be his. That would mean he's at around 3,800 yards and 28 touchdowns on the season with 6-7 picks. Those numbers should be good enough given his sky-high completion percentage.
However, he can't afford anymore sub-300-yard games through the air for the rest of the year or else he can likely kiss that Heisman Trophy goodbye.