The Heisman Trophy: How the Voting Works

By 4Football Staff · September 25, 2026 · 10 min read

Who gets a Heisman ballot, how first, second and third place votes become points, why regions matter, and what the voting tends to reward.

Every autumn the same argument starts around the middle of the season. One player is putting up huge numbers on a mediocre team. Another is on an undefeated team and has a quieter stat line. A third made one unforgettable play in a national game. Who is the best player in college football, and who will actually win the Heisman Trophy? Those are two different questions, and the second one is answered by a very specific voting process.

Knowing how that process works makes the whole season easier to follow. It explains why the race seems to narrow so quickly, why a strong finish can matter more than a strong start, and why certain positions win far more often than others. This guide covers who votes, how a ballot is counted, how the field of finalists is set, and what the system tends to reward.

What the award is, and what it says it is for

The Heisman Memorial Trophy goes each year to the player the voters judge to be the most outstanding player in college football. That wording matters. It is not "best quarterback," "best player on the best team," or "player with the best statistics." It is deliberately open-ended, and it is up to each voter to decide what "outstanding" means.

The award began in 1935, when the Downtown Athletic Club of New York first presented what was then called the DAC trophy. The first winner was Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago. After the club's athletic director, John W. Heisman, died in 1936, the trophy was renamed in his honor. Heisman had been a college coach and an influential voice in the early development of the sport. Today the award is administered by a nonprofit group, the Heisman Trophy Trust, and the presentation is held each December in New York.

The bronze figure itself is a familiar image: a running player with a ball tucked under one arm and the other arm extended to fend off a tackler. The statue was modeled on a real player, Ed Smith of New York University, and sculpted by Frank Eliscu. The winner receives the trophy, and the winner's school receives a replica to display.

For a longer look at the people and the traditions, see our history piece on the Heisman Trophy. This article sticks to the mechanics of the vote.

Who is eligible to win

The Heisman Trust's basic eligibility rule is that a candidate must be a college football player who is in good standing, meaning he is academically eligible and in compliance with the rules of the NCAA. There is no required class year. Freshmen and sophomores are eligible, and underclassmen have won the award. There is no minimum number of games, though in practice a player who misses much of the season has no realistic chance, because voters are comparing full seasons.

Although the rule technically covers players at schools across the NCAA, every winner in practice has come from the top level of the sport, because that is where the largest television audience and the most visible schedules are. A great season at a smaller school can earn votes, but it has to overcome a visibility gap.

The Trust has the power to remove a winner if it finds a serious violation of the eligibility rules. This has happened once in the award's history that most people remember: the 2005 winner, Reggie Bush of Southern California, had his award vacated in 2010 after NCAA sanctions, and the Trust restored it in 2024. Because the circumstances behind that case were specific to its time, treat it as an example of how the Trust has handled a dispute, not as a template for the future.

Who gets a ballot

The electorate is made up of three groups.

1. Media voters. The largest group by far is made up of sports journalists, broadcasters and other media members who cover college football. They are divided into six geographic regions, usually described as the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, Southwest and Far West. Each region has the same number of voters, and the regions carry equal weight. The purpose is to keep any one part of the country from dominating the result, and to ensure that voters in a given region are positioned to watch the teams in it.
2. Former winners. Every living Heisman winner receives a ballot. This group is much smaller than the media group, but it has real prestige, since each of those voters has stood where the finalists now stand.
3. A fan vote. The public can vote online, and the results of that vote are combined into a single ballot that counts as one vote in the final tally. In other words, a fan vote is a gesture to the audience more than a force in the outcome.

In recent years the total electorate has run to a little over nine hundred voters. The exact figure changes as winners pass away and as the Trust refreshes the media list, so treat that as a ballpark, not a rule.

Each voter submits one ballot of their own, and ballots are collected online during a voting window that the Trust announces each year. Voters do not see one another's choices while the window is open.

How a ballot is filled out

A ballot has three lines. Each voter picks a first-place player, a second-place player and a third-place player. The three choices have to be different people, and a voter does not have to choose from a list of finalists. The ballot is open to any eligible player in the country.

The points are simple:

When the voting closes, the Trust adds up every voter's points for each player. The player with the most total points wins. There is no requirement that the winner receive a majority of first-place votes or a minimum number of points. The runner-up, third-place finisher and so on are determined by the same totals.

Here is a hypothetical example to show how the arithmetic works. Imagine a tiny electorate of ten voters and three players, whom we will call Player A, Player B and Player C.

Player A earns 4 first-place votes (12 points), 3 second-place votes (6 points) and 3 third-place votes (3 points), for 21. Player B earns 3 firsts (9), 7 seconds (14) and no thirds, for 23. Player C earns 3 firsts (9), no seconds and 7 thirds (7), for 16. Player B wins even though Player A collected more first-place votes, and that shows an important point: the points system rewards being on many ballots near the top, not only winning first-place votes. A player who is consistently second on a lot of ballots can finish ahead of a polarizing one who wins the most firsts but is ranked third by some voters.

A real count is not usually that close, though history includes narrow finishes and wide ones. The margin of victory is published after the ceremony, and it varies enormously from year to year.

The calendar: from midseason buzz to the ceremony

The Heisman race has an unofficial schedule that repeats in most years.

• Preseason. Media outlets publish watch lists and "favorites." These are speculation, since no ballot exists yet. Players who start the season on a prominent team often get an early look.
• October. Candidates begin separating themselves. A strong performance in a nationally televised game against a ranked opponent can be worth more than a stack of statistics against weaker teams.
• Late November and rivalry week. The races usually tighten. Voters are watching for who played well in big games and who kept performing late in the season.
• Conference championship weekend. The final regular-season games in many conferences are played in early December. Because the voting closes shortly after, a championship-game performance can influence late-deciding voters.
• Finalist announcement. A short list of finalists, most often three or four players, is announced and invited to attend the ceremony in New York. Being invited is a statement about the voting totals, not a guarantee of anything else, because the ballots were already cast.
• The presentation. The winner is announced during a televised ceremony, usually in December.

The exact dates of the voting window, the ceremony and the finalist announcement are set each year by the Trust, so check the current announcement if you need the date.

What voters actually reward

Because the award has no strict criteria, patterns have developed over its history. They are tendencies, not rules.

Position

Quarterbacks and running backs have won the vast majority of Heismans. Wide receivers have won only occasionally. Defensive players are very rare among winners. Charles Woodson of Michigan, who won in 1997 as a defensive back who also returned kicks and played some offense, is the best-known example, and his case is usually cited as the exception that shows how high the bar is for a defender. Offensive linemen, who have no counting statistics at all, are almost never in the conversation, although their teammates' production reflects their work.

The reason is partly structural. Quarterbacks touch the ball on every offensive play and have the most visible statistics. Running backs and receivers have clean numbers. A defensive back's contributions, by contrast, are partly the plays that never happen because the opponent did not throw in his direction. If you want to read those numbers more critically, our guide to reading college football stats explains what the common totals do and do not say.

Team success

Most winners have played for teams that finished with excellent records, and many have been on teams contending for the national title. That correlation is not a rule, because a few have won on teams with ordinary records, but a player on an undefeated team usually has a built-in advantage: the team is in the national conversation, its games are on television, and voters can see it. If you want to track how teams are rated, our rankings page is a good starting point, and our article on how college football rankings work explains where those ratings come from.

The signature moments

A single spectacular game in prime time can define a race. Voters are human, and highlights shape memory. This is the part of the process that critics point to when they argue that early-season or late-night games are under-watched, and that West Coast players can be at a disadvantage when their games end after many East Coast voters have gone to bed. The six-region structure of the electorate was designed in part to counter that kind of bias, but it cannot erase it.

The statistical case

Raw numbers matter. Passing yardage, touchdowns, rushing yards, yards per carry and touchdown-to-turnover ratio are all in the conversation. So is efficiency, since voters increasingly weigh how a player performed on a per-play basis and against strong competition. Our leaders page lists statistical leaders, which is a helpful starting point when you want to see which players are producing the most.

Common misunderstandings

• "The Heisman goes to the best player." It goes to the player who gets the most points from a group of voters who each define "outstanding" in their own way.
• "It is a fan vote." The fan vote counts as one ballot among hundreds.
• "The finalists are chosen by a committee." The finalists are determined from the voting totals. There is no committee picking a short list in advance.
• "The winner has to be a senior." Underclassmen are eligible and have won.
• "Only the winner matters." The runner-up and third-place finishers are also recorded, and many players who did not win are remembered for how close they came.
• "A winner can never lose the trophy." The Trust has the authority to vacate an award. It has done so in a rare case and later restored it.

How to follow the race like an informed fan

If you want to watch the Heisman race the way voters do, a few habits help.

1. Watch the big games, not only the box scores. A player's performance against strong defenses tells you more than a total inflated in a lopsided game.
2. Look at the ballot logic. Ask who will be named on the most ballots, not only who will be first on a few.
3. Check availability. Injuries end races. Check team news and the scores page for who is actually playing, since a missed game can cost a candidate real ground.
4. Know that late games count. Because the voting closes shortly after the conference championship weekend, a late-season stretch can decide a close race.
5. Remember that the award is one view. There are other honors that recognize specific positions or traits. Our guide to college football awards beyond the Heisman lists them and explains who votes on each.

The short version

• The Heisman goes to the "most outstanding player in college football," and the voters decide what that means.
• The electorate has three parts: media voters in six regions, living former winners, and a single combined fan vote.
• Each ballot names three players, worth 3, 2 and 1 points, and the highest point total wins.
• The system rewards being on many ballots, not only winning first-place votes.
• Quarterbacks and running backs have won most often, and defensive winners are rare.
• Finalists are announced after the voting closes, and the ceremony is held in December in New York.
• Eligibility requires good standing with the NCAA, and the Trust can vacate a title if rules were broken.