Cote: Cam Ward having Hurricanes’ best QB year ever, deserves Heisman, why UM can win it all | Opinion
Three-quarters through the college football regular season, Cam Ward should win the Heisman Trophy and (to borrow an election term) the vote shouldn’t be close. Ward is having the best, most impactful season in the sport, and the greatest year by any quarterback in Miami Hurricanes history. Better than the five seasons that led to UM national championships, and better than the two that won Heismans.
This is quantifiable, and we’ve brought the proof.
A much tougher case to make: The argument that No. 4-ranked, 9-0 Miami has a good or at least realistic shot at the school’s long-elusive sixth national title, as dust collects on the last from 2001. The ranking and the record say yes-why-not. The betting odds mirroring public opinion say otherwise.
We will explore that, too, as a dream season hits the home stretch: Games left vs. Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Syracuse, the ACC Championship Game and College Football Playoff.
First to Ward, the one-and-done transfer from Washington State who has proved to be the grand prize of the portal making the most of his lone season as a Cane. To say he has been the team’s MVP ranks on a no-duh scale with declaring the sun is bright.
Comparing Ward’s season with three regular season games left to the seven most accomplished QB years in UM’s rich history at the position — the five national championships (NC) and two Heisman Trophies (H):
| Year | QB | Pct. | Yds. | TD-Int | YPA | Rating |
| 1983 | Bernie Kosar (NC) | 61.5 | 2,329 | 15-13 | 7.1 | 128.5 |
| 1986 | Vinny Testaverde (H) | 63.4 | 2,557 | 26-9 | 9.3 | 165.8 |
| 1987 | Steve Walsh (NC) | 59.1 | 2,249 | 19-7 | 7.5 | 138.8 |
| 1989 | Craig Erickson (NC) | 53.8 | 2,007 | 16-13 | 7.4 | 125.4 |
| 1991 | Gino Torretta (NC) | 55.3 | 3,095 | 20-8 | 8.3 | 138.8 |
| 1992 | Gino Torretta (H) | 56.7 | 3,060 | 19-7 | 7.6 | 132.8 |
| 2001 | Ken Dorsey (NC) | 57.9 | 2,652 | 23-9 | 8.3 | 146.1 |
| 2024 | Cam Ward | 67.1 | 3,146 | 29-6 | 9.8 | 175.1 |
Ward is first in completion percentage, first in yards, first in touchdown passes and TD-interception ratio, first in yards per attempt, and first in passer rating.
He is on pace for 4,194 regular-season yards, which would shatter Kosar’s school season record of 3,642 set in 1984.
He has tied Walsh’s season record of 29 TD passes and is on pace for 39 (38.7).
Ward presently is a narrow Heisman betting favorite in what distills as a four-man race, just ahead of Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter, Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel and Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty.
Eliminate Hunter, a novelty for playing both sides of the ball, his candidacy floated by Deion Sanders’ megaphone. Colorado is 6-2 and ranked No. 21. Hunter has 60 catches for 757 yards and eight TDs, and two interceptions on defense. (Miami’s Xavier Restrepo has more receiving yards and TDs.)
Eliminate Jeanty, too. He has 1,525 rushing yards and 20 TDs to lead a 7-1, 12th-ranked team. Impressive. But there’s a reason only one RB since 2010 (Derrick Henry) has won the Heisman. And it’s Boise State. Of the Mountain West Conference.
So the legit race is Ward vs. Oregon’s Gabriel. Edge to Ward: He leads Gabriel in all of the comparative statistical categories used above except one, completion percentage. Edge to Gabriel: He leads the No. 1 team in the country.
Now the real edge to Ward, the one Heisman voters should weigh foremost: He has been the difference in his team’s season to a degree Gabriel has not.
Oregon has been great before this year. They’re 31-5 under Dan Lanning since Mario Cristobal left for Miami. Gabriel inherited a top-tier program and has merely carried on. Truthfully, the Ducks QB last year, Bo Nix, was a much better Heisman candidate (he finished third) who had a hugely better year than Gabriel is having.
Ward? He took over a Canes team that went 7-6 last year (3-5 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) and lost to Rutgers in a minor bowl. This quarterback is reasons one through five on why a mediocre team has become top-five nationally.
Cristobal went 12-13 his first two seasons. The difference is Ward.
“There is a unique chemistry. The quarterback room is very different than two years ago,” Cristobal said after the weekend win over Duke. “There was no connection. That was very difficult, a hurdle, a mountain to get over. When Cam first got here the first thing he wanted to do was get everybody’s number and get together [in the offseason].”
The next mountain for Ward and the Canes to get over: Being seen as national-championship long shots after the betting-odds big four of Ohio State, Georgia, Oregon and Texas.
It is understandable. Strength of schedule is one main reason. The big four betting faves combined have faced 11 ranked opponents (going 8-3). Miami has faced zero opponents who were ranked at the time, although one (Louisville) is currently ranked No. 25.
More shade on UM is the close calls that have them a stew of comebacks and luck from being 6-3: The 38-34 home win on an overturned winning TD by Virginia Tech, the 39-38 miracle rally at Cal, and the 52-45 comeback at Louisville.
Common thread in all of those games and this entire season: A Miami offense that has been quite unstoppable.
“We want to be the best offense to ever do this in college football,” Ward says it plain.
Miami’s 47.4-point scoring average ranks No. 1 in all of FBS.
The defense shows cracks and leaks, but the offense has always risen to overcome them.
That is Miami’s great, against-odds national-championship hope: That the Canes always will be able to compensate for their own defensive shortcomings by outscoring any opponent.
Heisman voters ought remind themselves that all of that hope starts and ends with Cam Ward, and that no college team in America relies on one player more.
This story was originally published November 4, 2024 at 11:48 AM.
