Ohio State football quarterback C.J. Stroud enters stretch run of Heisman Trophy race

Ohio State has a lot on the line when it meets Michigan on Saturday.

A win in the rivalry game puts the Buckeyes in the Big Ten championship game and in position to reach the College Football Playoff.

It will also present quarterback C.J. Stroud with a big stage to make a closing case for the Heisman Trophy, adding to all the high stakes of this weekend’s matchup of unbeatens.

Stroud, who directs the highest-scoring offense in the nation, has remained the favorite for college football’s most prestigious individual award over a pool of candidates who have come and gone this fall.

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“He’s almost weathered every challenger,” said Cory McCartney, the author of The Heisman Trophy: The Story of an American Icon and Its Winners.

Injuries hampered Alabama quarterback Bryce Young’s shot at becoming a rare repeat winner, as well as once surging cases for Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker and Oregon quarterback Bo Nix.

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The stretch run leaves Stroud in largely a two-man race with Caleb Williams, the dynamic quarterback at Southern California who has put the Trojans in contention for a playoff spot. Williams also has a marquee window to impress voters this weekend with a prime-time game against Notre Dame.

It’s no small feat that Stroud has maintained his front-runner status over the past three months. Preseason favorites can drop like autumn leaves. It’s been nearly a decade since one went on to capture the Heisman. The last wire-to-wire winner remains Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota from 2014.

“I would argue it’s just as hard as being a defending winner,” McCartney said. “If you’ve gone through the summer with nothing but hype that you’re the man and everyone’s chasing you, how much more difficult is it to live up to that each and every week?”

One of the biggest reasons for Stroud keeping his position is the record of the Buckeyes. At 11-0, they are pushing to make the playoff and have remained at No. 2 in the selection committee’s rankings since the first reveal earlier this month.

Ever since the postseason format debuted eight years ago, all but one Heisman winner was a part of a team that reached the four-team bracket.

Stroud’s candidacy as a redshirt freshman last season lost steam when the Buckeyes fell out of playoff contention following a 42-27 loss at Michigan.

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C.J. Stroud enters Ohio State- Michigan game as leading Heisman hopeful

While widely seen as the favorite entering the final weekend of the regular season, coming off a six-touchdown performance in a rout of Michigan State in the penultimate week, Stroud slipped despite passing for almost 400 yards against the Wolverines. He finished fourth in the final voting.

“I look at a Heisman winner as two different things,” McCartney said. “You’re either the truly transcendent player of the season, or you’re the poster boy for a team that is the most dominant or one of the most dominant teams of the season. Stroud is probably the latter. He’s not putting up otherworldly numbers, but he’s been really, really good and been everything he’s expected to be on a team that is doing what it’s supposed to do this season.”

Through 11 games, Stroud has thrown for 2,991 yards, 35 touchdowns and just four interceptions with a 66.4% completion percentage.

The numbers, while not as eye-popping as some of the most recent winners of the prestigious award, have kept him in firm contention.

Chris Huston, who covered the award for a decade at HeismanPundit.com and later ran Heisman.com for the Heisman Trust, sees 40 touchdowns as the threshold in the era of wide-open spread offenses.

Each quarterback who has won the Heisman since Florida’s Tim Tebow in 2007 has combined to throw and run for at least 40 touchdowns.

If Stroud has claimed the lane as the candidate leading a national championship favorite, Williams has staked out one as someone reviving a traditional powerhouse.

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The Trojans had fallen on hard times before he followed Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma. They went 4-8 last year, their second losing season in four years, leading Riley to bring an influx of transfers to give a needed jolt to the roster in his first season at the helm.

None has been as impactful as Williams, who has thrown for 3,480 yards, 33 touchdowns and three interceptions, while completing 64.9% of his passes. He's also rushed for 316 and seven touchdowns.

Huston, who was also an assistant sports information director at USC in the early 2000s, managing Heisman campaigns for Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart, sees parallels to Palmer’s success run.

When Palmer won the award in 2002, it came as he led the Trojans after a similar down period for the program, bringing them out of their lull at the onset of the Pete Carroll era.

Stroud’s push also mirrors a previous one from his school, evoking shades of Troy Smith’s run to New York in 2006.

“It’s very similar,” Huston said. “He really didn’t have a Heisman moment. He was just kind of really strong all year, the clear leader and had that great game against Michigan in the end, did it on a big stage and won in a landslide.”

How they perform in their rivalry games could determine the finish. Williams is guaranteed to play in two more games with USC having clinched a spot in the Pac-12 championship game.

The Buckeyes must prevail over Michigan in order to win the Big Ten East and grab a spot in the league’s championship game the following week, allowing another opportunity for Stroud to add to his final push.

“They both have great advantages,” Huston said. “They both play for Heisman powers. They both play for their rivals in huge games that are going to be massively watched.”

It has the makings of a compelling finish.

Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Contact him at jkaufman@dispatch.com or on Twitter @joeyrkaufman.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: CJ Stroud enters stretch run of Heisman race for Ohio State