{"id":81478,"date":"2025-10-22T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=81478"},"modified":"2025-10-21T15:43:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T19:43:24","slug":"week-8-heisman-poll-sec-sec-sec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/10\/22\/week-8-heisman-poll-sec-sec-sec\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 8 Heisman Poll: SEC, SEC, SEC"},"content":{"rendered":"
It just means more…Heisman candidates. We all know the SEC is dominating the AP Poll. Sure, they may not have the top spots, those are for O-H-I-O and Indiana’s new $100 million dollar man. The SEC has ten teams in the Top 25 and five in the Top 10. Four quarterbacks, we are so back, from the SEC make our Week 8 Heisman list. Our list is not made up of just our SEC Last Word on College writers; instead, we had representation from the Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, SEC, and G6.<\/div>\n

Week 8 Heisman Poll<\/h2>\n

The Johnny Manziel Honorable Mention: Diego Pavia, QB, Vanderbilt Commodores<\/h3>\n
What does Diego Pavia<\/a> have to do to earn some respect? He already has Johnny Football as his hype man on the sidelines and Theo Vonn dating his mom (allegedly.) Pavia is also continuing to show that the 2024 Vanderbilt squad was not a fluke. The Commodores knocked off LSU this weekend in Nashville. Now, Pavia and the Dores will welcome College Gameday to Nashville as they host Missouri at 2:30 pm CT on Saturday. The game against the Tigers appears to be the first of many de facto playoff games as the college football calendar starts to wind down. A loss is not fatal for either team, but it greatly reduces the margin for error in trying to break their way onto the scene.<\/div>\n

#5 Marcel Reed, QB, Texas A&M Aggies<\/h3>\n
Marcel Reed<\/a> and the Texas A&M Aggies are 7-0 and have the inside track to the SEC Championship game for the first time in program history. Who is making the 8-4 joke now? Ok, to be fair, this one<\/a> made us all laugh. Texas A&M has shown it can win big and win shootouts. They had to do the latter this week in Fayetteville. Reed has a strong running game to support him, and while his numbers are not always flashy, he continues to do whatever the Aggies need to get the job done. This week, Reed and the 12th Man head to Baton Rouge to face the Tigers at night. When these two get together weird things happen, like people getting punched in the pacemaker. LSU is coming off a loss to Vanderbilt, but that surely won’t stop this one from getting weird.<\/div>\n
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Photo Credit: Ben Lonergan\/The Register-Guard \/ USA TODAY NETWORK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

#4 Dante Moore, QB, Oregon Ducks<\/h3>\n
Dante Moore<\/a> and Oregon took off the loss to Indiana two weeks ago on poor old Rutgers in Piscataway. The Ducks hung 56 points on the Scarlett Knights. Moore was efficient, finishing the game 15 of 20 for 290 yards and four touchdowns. The Ducks head back to Autzen this week, where they will welcome a helpless Wisconsin team. What happened to the Badgers? The failure to adapt, a common theme among programs participating in the coaching carousel, seems to be the culprit. The Wisky administration has provided their vote of confidence behind the Badgers’ staff, too bad that money and talent can’t help this week. Look for Moore to put up some more eye-popping numbers.<\/div>\n

#3 Julian Sayin, QB, The Ohio State University<\/h3>\n
I am just Julian Sayin<\/a> that the young quarterback is shooting up the boards. Sayin put up video games numbers against the Badgers in Madison this weekend. Hey completed 36 of 42 passes for 393 yards and four touchdowns. Ryan Day has done an excellent job of bringing his young quarterback along and unleashing him on lesser Big Ten talent. It won’t matter much what he does against a less-than-stellar B1G slate. Sayin will have to show his worth against the Wolverines, in the B1G Championship, and the playoff.<\/div>\n

#2 Ty Simpson, QB, Alabama Crimson Tide<\/h3>\n
Ty Simpson<\/a> continues to just win. Who would have thought? Alabama and their quarterback emerging as the one of the most dominant teams in college football. Hats off to Simpson. He bided his time, waited on the bench, and weathered the storm that was Florida State, yes, the same team that lost on The Farm this weekend to Stanford. Simpson continues to show that he has ice water in his veins and that he doesn’t need a strong running game to pick apart opposing defenses. Simpson is a big reason why the Tide have won four straight against ranked teams (a feat no other team in CFB can Match) and why they were smoking cigars on Saturday night at Bryant Denny.<\/div>\n

#1 Fernando Mendoza, QB, Indiana Hoosiers<\/h3>\n
Indiana is not sexy. They don’t even care if you notice them. They just keep winning and winning a lot. Curt Cignetti received a significant raise, courtesy of Mark Cuban and the Hoosier boosters, to ensure he would stay in Bloomington and not take his talents to Happy Valley. Mendoza<\/a> is a big part of why the Hoosiers have continued to be so successful this year. He carved up the Spartans this weekend for 332 yards and four touchdowns. He may need some big play ability this week as the Hoosiers welcome in Cinderella, UCLA, to Bloomington. Too bad for the Bruins, it might be midnight. Mendoza and the Hoosiers have already shown the shoe fits.<\/div>\n

Main Photo: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It just means more…Heisman candidates. We all know the SEC is dominating the AP Poll. Sure, they may not have the top spots, those are for O-H-I-O and Indiana’s new $100 million dollar man. The SEC has ten teams in the Top 25 and five in the Top 10. Four quarterbacks, we are so back, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4424,"featured_media":69654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,35574,2,35572,35605,17,35609,35602,3,35580],"tags":[5144,35725,3348],"class_list":["post-81478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-alabama-crimson-tide","category-featured","category-heisman","category-indiana-hoosiers","category-news","category-ohio-state-buckeyes","category-oregon-ducks","category-sec","category-vanderbilt-commodores","tag-curt-cignetti","tag-mark-cuban","tag-ryan-day"],"modified_by":"Kate Pearson Halyburton, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81478"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81509,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81478\/revisions\/81509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}