What it’ll take for Arizona QB Noah Fifita to beat the odds, win the Heisman | Michael Lev

The odds are literally — and illogically — stacked against him.

On FanDuel, for instance, Fifita is listed at +10,000, or 100 to 1 on a $100 bet. He has the same odds as new Missouri QB Austin Simmons, who threw four touchdown passes — and five interceptions — while losing his starting job last year at Ole Miss; and Ohio State running back Bo Jackson, who has a Heisman-worthy name but, through no fault of his own, is merely the third-best Heisman hopeful on his own team.

Among those with better odds than Fifita: Texas Tech QB Will Hammond, who’s never been a full-time starter and is coming off a torn ACL; projected Tennessee starting QB Faizon Brandon, who, if he won it, would be the first true-freshman Heisman recipient; newly named Alabama starting QB Keelon Russell, who has two career appearances against Louisiana-Monroe and Eastern Illinois; and Florida QB contender Aaron Philo, who has two career TD passes.

Sensing a pattern here? Everyone I just listed besides Hammond plays for a bigger-brand school in the SEC or Big Ten. Using the current conference alignment, 16 of the past 20 Heisman winners represent those two leagues.

Fifita has a better résumé than all of those players — and many of the others who are higher on the odds board. But to win the Heisman, or even make the ceremony in New York, he’ll have to overcome brand bias, put up numbers no previous UA quarterback has posted and lead the Wildcats to the College Football Playoff.

No big deal, right?

Let’s look at each of those factors as we assess Fifita’s candidacy.

Underrated, undrafted

Brand bias in college football is real and, since the dissolution of the original Pac-12, worse than ever.

Even my colleagues at The Athletic — longtime sportswriters who truly care about college football — can fall victim to it.

The Athletic recently conducted its annual “Heisman Draft.” Eight staffers selected four players apiece, for a total of 32.

Fifita was not among them.

Twenty-three of the 32 picks were from the SEC, Big Ten or Notre Dame — as big a brand as it gets. Four were from the ACC, including the Miami duo of Darian Mensah and Malachi Toney (both legit contenders in my opinion). Five were from the Big 12.

All five are quarterbacks: Hammond, Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker, BYU’s Bear Bachmeier, Kansas State’s Avery Johnson and Utah’s Devon Dampier.

The prolific Mestemaker is new to the league. Hammond hasn’t played that much. Bachmeier has tons of potential. I get gambling on their upside.

Johnson and Dampier aren’t better players than Fifita, who, lest we forget, was named the first-team All-Big 12 quarterback last year. Nor do they play for clearly better teams with CFP bona fides.

Kansas State and Utah have new head coaches and offensive coordinators. In Johnson’s case, that might be the catalyst for a turnaround. But it’s still an unknown.

Arizona has the same head coach and OC, giving Fifita continuity he’s never experienced as a starter. I’d rather have that.

I genuinely respect The Athletic’s staff, but I found Fifita’s exclusion from their Heisman Draft to be baffling and borderline disrespectful. At least they acknowledged the crapshoot nature of the exercise: 2025 Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza didn’t get picked last year, and only three of the top 10 vote-getters were selected.

One last note about brand bias: It isn’t just about the conference you play in. Over the past 20 years, only two West Coast players have won the Heisman: Oregon’s Marcus Mariota and USC’s Caleb Williams. Both were slam dunks.

Statistically speaking

What kind of numbers would Fifita need to accumulate to get into the Heisman conversation?

Unprecedented is a word that comes to mind.

Fifita set the UA record with 29 TD passes last season, including three in the Holiday Bowl. He would need at least 35 before the Heisman votes are in to stand a chance. If Arizona makes the Big 12 Championship Game, Fifita would have 13 cracks at it.

Fifita also would greatly help his cause if he could build upon last season’s personal-best rushing totals of 216 yards and three touchdowns.

OC Seth Doege won’t put the undersized Fifita in harm's way by running him excessively — especially with a promising group of skill-position players around him. But if Fifita could get to 400 yards and five TDs, he’d have a better case.

This century, 21 of the 26 Heisman winners have been quarterbacks. Nineteen of them threw at least 30 touchdown passes. The exceptions, Tim Crouch and Johnny Manziel, were dual threats. Crouch rushed for 1,115 yards and 18 touchdowns in 2001, Manziel 1,410 and 21 in 2012.

Starting with Jameis Winston in 2013, every QB who’s won the Heisman has thrown at least 40 TD passes except Lamar Jackson in 2016. He had 30 — plus 1,571 rushing yards and 21 rushing TDs.

In many cases, CFP participation helped inflate those numbers. Regardless, that’s the recent standard that’s been set.

Keep in mind, too, that Arizona’s coaches won’t run up the score or keep Fifita in a blowout game any longer than he needs to be. They know he values winning over individual glory.

That also happens to be the best path to New York.

Winning is everything

For Fifita to garner serious consideration for the Heisman, Arizona has to win the Big 12.

Not just make the conference championship game. Win the whole damn thing.

It’s the only way — short of a 40-TD, 4,500-yard season — that Fifita will get enough attention to break through the bias barrier.

Generally speaking, it takes a truly exceptional performance to win the Heisman if you don’t play for a conference champ/CFP participant.

Travis Hunter won it in 2024 by being the best two-way player since Charles Woodson (who won the Heisman in 1997). Colorado also had by far its best record, 9-4, since 2016.

Jayden Daniels won it in 2023 despite playing for a middling LSU squad. But Daniels’ numbers were extraordinary, and he compiled them while playing for a college-football blueblood in the SEC.

Williams won it in 2022 despite USC falling short of the CFP. But the Trojans went 11-1 in the regular season and reached the Pac-12 Championship Game. USC is also USC. He was the school’s eighth Heisman winner. No Arizona Wildcat has finished higher than ninth.

Each of the five previous winners — Bryce Young, DeVonta Smith, Joe Burrow, Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield — played in the CFP. Mendoza did, as well.

The CFP’s expansion from four to 12 teams helps. But as we’ve already learned, the Big 12 isn’t viewed as a multi-bid league. You gotta win it to get in it.

That’s what makes Arizona’s Week 2 game at BYU so pivotal in so many ways. If the billboards that just went up are the soft launch of Fifita’s Heisman campaign, a Fifita-led upset win in Provo would be the grand opening.

A loss wouldn’t end Fifita’s bid, but it would hurt — and it would leave Arizona with minimal margin for error the rest of the way. The Wildcats maybe could afford one more loss. The first post-expansion Big 12 title game featured two 7-2 teams. Last year’s combatants were each 8-1.

So where does all this leave our guy Noah? Fighting an uphill battle as an underappreciated underdog.

In other words, right in his wheelhouse.