Herbstreit breaks down Heisman Trophy race

by Tony Crumpton - Assoc. Editor - Wed Nov 11 08:57:17 GMT-04:00 2015

ESPN analyst and announcer Kirk Herbstreit was interviewed on ESPN SportsCenter on Tuesday night and explained his thoughts on the tight race for the Heisman Trophy award.

"Well, it changed obviously after last week. Everybody, I mean everybody, had Leonard Fournette," Herbstreit said. "It was almost as if it was already a foregone conclusion and then after the way the game went down in Tuscaloosa, I think you have to now give Derrick Henry the nod. He went over 200 yards against LSU; he's had a huge year if you look at his numbers. The offense is built around his ability to run the football and what better game than that game to be able to go crazy. So I think he has taken the lead."

However, Herbstreit says do not ignore bruising LSU running back Leonard Fournette.

"I think Leonard Fournette is still in this discussion. How can you go from being the guy to having a rough game then being eliminated from it? So I think he's still up there. He needs to bounce back, LSU needs to keep winning football games. He's going to need to be able to put up big numbers."

Herbstreit believes that the last few games of the season will determine the award because of how tight the competition is for the national award.

"And then after that, what makes this great is I think the Heisman Trophy, much like the national championship, is gonna be decided in these next four weeks. Whichever player -- this includes Corey Coleman at Baylor, Ezekiel Elliott at Ohio State, you could say Deshaun Watson at Clemson -- whichever player just goes out and has that moment coming up in November and maybe early December is probably gonna be the guy that goes on to win this thing. So it's still a wide-open race."

In the latest ESPN Experts' Poll, Watson is 8th place with only four total votes.

The full list includes RB Derrick Henry (#1), RB Leonard Fournette (#2), WR Corey Coleman (#3), RB Ezekiel Elliott (#4), RB Christian McCaffrey (#5), QB Trevone Boykin (#6), RB Dalvin Cook (#7), QB Deshaun Watson (#8) and QB Luke Falk (#9).

ICYMI Video: Kirk Herbstreit is terrified of Zombies during halftime of the ND-Temple game.