For the past six seasons, The Athletic’s college football writers have held a preseason draft of Heisman contenders, earning points based on how high our selections finish in the voting (if any of them do). I consider it a success just to pick one of the eventual finalists, as happened this past season with my first-round pick: Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love, who finished in third place.

Interestingly, and perhaps embarrassingly, he was the highest finisher whom any of us selected. But I got edged in the final standings by Ralph Russo, who got two of the top six vote-getters with the Ohio State tandem of Julian Sayin and Jeremiah Smith.

WriterRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4

Vannini

Cade Klubnik

Sam Leavitt

Miller Moss

Kevin Jennings

Russo

Jeremiah Smith

Avery Johnson

Julian Sayin

Marcel Reed

Dochterman

Arch Manning

Demond Williams

Eli Holstein

Mark Gronowski

Mandel

Jeremiyah Love

Bryce Underwood

Nick Singleton

Darian Mensah

Feldman

Garrett Nussmeier

Carson Beck

Ty Simpson

Dylan Raiola

Ubben

LaNorris Sellers

DJ Lagway

Devon Dampier

Austin Simmons

Navarro

Jackson Arnold

Dante Moore

Ryan Williams

Nate Frazier

Williams

Drew Allar

John Mateer

Makhi Hughes

TJ Parker

None of our eight voters used any of our combined 32 picks on this year’s winner, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza. Though in fairness, how could anyone have seen him coming? Mendoza went 10-10 in two seasons as a starter at Cal before transferring to Indiana. He became the first winner to go undrafted in our poll since Alabama receiver DeVonta Smith in 2020.

More inexplicable is the fact that nobody picked the runner-up, either, despite the fact that Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia was a breakout star in 2024. I can’t speak for the others, but I remember assuming in the preseason that Vanderbilt would be a 6-6-type team, which wouldn’t be good enough to get its quarterback to New York.

Instead, the Commodores broke through and won 10 games.

It marked the first time no one selected the runner-up since TCU’s Max Duggan in 2022 and the first time that neither of the top two was drafted. Perhaps not coincidentally, it came the year the top two played for Indiana and Vanderbilt.

As always, it’s amusing to look back and cringe at some of the names that did get drafted, starting with Chris Vannini’s No. 1 pick: Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik. Klubnik was one of several first-round QBs who finished with underwhelming seasons, including LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, Penn State’s Drew Allar (though he missed the second half of the season) and, um, Auburn’s Jackson Arnold. Yikes on that one, Manny Navarro.

The biggest bust of the draft, though, came courtesy of Justin Williams. He used his third-round pick on Oregon running back Makhi Hughes, who finished the season with 17 carries.

All told, our panel embarrassingly missed on seven of the top 10 finishers. In addition to Mendoza and Pavia, no one selected Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez (No. 5), Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton (No. 7), Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss (No. 8), Ohio State safety Caleb Downs (No. 9) or Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King (No. 10).

Better luck to all of us next year.