Countdown to Kickoff: Opinion Week - Haynes King Will Be In the 2024 Heisman Race

NCAA Football: Gasparilla Bowl-Georgia Tech at Central Florida — Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Let’s get spicy

This article is a part of opinion week, but this article is less of an opinion and more of a hot take. I was looking at the early odds for the 2024 Heisman that came out earlier this month. Currently it’s a pretty crowded field with no real front runner at the moment. Carson Beck and Quinn Ewers are sitting at +700 (for those unfamiliar, +700 means if you bet $10 and they win you would get $70 profit) but they aren’t listed that much higher than most of the other QBs on the chart and are also likely getting a bit of a bump early on because of the teams they are on.

I also saw a great deal of QBs in the +1000 to +5000 range. You know who wasn’t in that range though? Georgia Tech QB Haynes King who was sitting at +50000 odds to win the Heisman.

Now I’m not a betting man personally, but I found those odds a bit insulting based on the numbers King put up last year. I’m sure most GT fans know already, but it bears repeating, Haynes King was one of 2 players last year to put up 2700 passing yards, 600 rushing yards, 25 touchdown passes, and 5 touchdown runs. The only other QB who put up those numbers last year? That would be LSU QB Jayden Daniels, who avid football watchers may recall won the Heisman in 2023.

To be fair Jayden put up a total of 3812 passing yards and 40 TD passes while King only put up 2842 passing yards and 27 TD passes, so its not a one for one comparison. Still the fact stands that Haynes King put up some impressive numbers for Georgia Tech last year.

So why wasn’t Haynes King in the Heisman discussion last year? Well there were definitely some knocks against him last season. First off the turnovers didn’t help anything. Despite having the 28th ranked QBR in the nation King was tied for throwing the second most interceptions last year with 16 on the season.

This may be controversial, but I don’t personally think all interceptions are a bad thing. Depending on the situation throwing risky passes may be needed. Sometimes you need to make an aggressive play and things don’t go your way, sometimes the defender just makes a fantastic play, and sometimes both happen as seen in the clip below (which I sill don’t necessarily believe was an interception).

Point still stands, King needs to cut down on his interceptions. Seriously, if you’re reading this Haynes I need you to stop throwing into triple coverage. It’s going to cause me an to have aneurysm. Really though, the interceptions are the biggest knock against King but that is something that usually improves with experience. I expect King to be much better limiting interceptions this year. So with that in mind, why aren’t King’s odds for the Heisman award better?

Well it’s pretty simple, he plays for GT. The Heisman award isn’t just about how good your stats are, it’s about leading your team to victory and competing on the national stage. GT went 6-6 in the regular season last year, and despite some fantastic upsets that kind of record does not garner much recognition on the national stage.

Honestly it’s kind of disappointing because this moment:

belongs on a Heisman highlight reel, but instead people forget the drive to win and just remember Miami not closing out the game by kneeling against a 2-3 Georgia Tech team at the time.

Alright, enough naysaying, I didn’t write this article to tell you all the reasons Haynes King can’t win a Heisman. 2024 is the prove it year and Haynes King has the talent around him to make a run.

Haynes King has one of the best receiving cores in college football, accompanied by a talented set of running backs to help with the read option plays that King seems so adept at, along with an experienced O-line. The Georgia Tech offense is primed with everything it needs to put on a show against the talented defenses such as FSU, Louisville, Notre Dame, and some school in athens I’m not super familiar with.

Our offense has a serious chance to prove themselves and I fully expect us to continue putting up ridiculous numbers. King has had time this offseason to work on cutting down his interceptions and better understand the offense so I think he can lead the offense to even higher numbers than before.

I also expect an improvement on defense (mostly because they can’t get much worse). Weirdly enough, defensive performance could have a big impact on offensive performance as we may retain the ball more to move it downfield.

The scary part for Georgia Tech fans is that our team has one of the top 5 toughest schedules in the nation this year. While that is not my favorite prospect for our win total, it does open up some interesting possibilities for the Georgia Tech athletes. One of the things that isn’t talked about when it comes to the Heisman and other national awards is the recognition and narrative around some of the competitors. Players who are in nationally televised games are significantly more likely to earn awards. There will be more eyes on Georgia Tech this year than we’ve had in a long time, and that means more chances for our offense and defense to prove themselves as talented players. If our players can put up the numbers like we expect them too, then we may see multiple players in the race for awards at the end of the season.

People keep talking about how great this year will be based on last year. While not everyone thinks we will be a contender for the ACC championship, we don’t really need to be for our players to make a splash. If we put up good numbers and win 8 or so games on this schedule, which still asks a lot to be fair, I think you’ll see many of our players in discussion for big time awards at the end of the season. Prime among those will be Haynes King at the helm of the offense, who I firmly believe will be in the running for the Heisman award.