A Heisman Trophy snub never really fades. Trophies get dusted, highlights blur, but the feeling that the wrong name was called in New York just sits there.
The numbers said Christian McCaffrey. The tape said Vince Young. The raw dominance said Ndamukong Suh. Five seasons, five players who did everything you are supposed to do to win the most famous award in college football, then watched someone else walk onto the stage in the Downtown Athletic Club spotlight. These are the Heisman Trophy snubs that still bother people when the subject comes up at a bar or on a message board.
This list looks at the past twenty years of voting and picks the seasons where the gap between best player and actual winner feels the widest. The stats are real, the emotions are still live, and the arguments are not going away.
Why these snubs still sting
The Heisman is not just a trophy. It is a shortcut. Voters in the media and former winners send in hundreds of ballots by early December, before bowl season and sometimes even before the full story of a year is written. The ceremony is a made for television moment, but the impact goes way beyond one night.
That little bronze arm changes how scouts talk about you, how a school recruits, how a program sells itself to the next teenager watching from a dorm or a couch. It shapes draft buzz and even how old games get remembered. The Reggie Bush saga proved that. He won the 2005 Heisman, then forfeited it in 2010 because of NCAA violations tied to impermissible benefits at Southern California. The trophy sat vacant for more than a decade before the Heisman Trust finally restored it in 2024, long after fans had spent years arguing about what should have happened.
In the modern pass heavy era, the award leans hard toward quarterbacks and stat monsters on offense. That makes life even tougher for defenders and all purpose backs whose real value shows up in field position, broken schemes, and film room pauses more than in box score headlines. When voters miss on seasons like that, it does not feel like a small mistake. It feels like the record of the sport is a little off.
For this ranking, I leaned on official Heisman voting data, single season performance first, then quality of competition and lasting impact, with light context for era and position when seasons felt close.
The seasons that still spark arguments
5. Tua Tagovailoa Heisman Trophy snub
In 2018, Tua Tagovailoa turned Alabama into a weekly demolition. His numbers look unreal even now. He threw for 3966 yards with 43 touchdowns and only 6 interceptions, completing 245 of 355 passes. His passer rating was 199.4, a major college record at the time and a mark that passed Baker Mayfield previous best.
Kyler Murray beat him out and deserved plenty of praise. Murray finished with more total offense and a huge rushing line. Still, Tua averaged more than 11 yards per attempt and sat for many fourth quarters because Alabama had already buried teams. He often left games before the stats could fully stack up. That is the wild part. His own efficiency cut into his counting numbers and gave voters a reason to lean toward the quarterback who played in more tight finishes.
Inside Tuscaloosa, there was no doubt. Nick Saban talked over and over about Tua calm, his accuracy and the way the whole offense relaxed when he stepped into the huddle. Teammates still tell stories about practice throws that never seemed to hit the ground. I have gone back to those midseason routs against ranked teams more than once. You watch him drop back, hitch once and fire, and it feels like you are seeing something that should have ended with a statue.
Murray got his moment in New York and turned it into the first pick in the draft. Tua got a seat in the front row and then a long pro journey with injuries and questions. When people list recent Heisman Trophy snubs, his name comes up fast, because that season looked and felt like the one every blue chip quarterback dreams about.
4. Deshaun Watson solves Alabama later
Deshaun Watson had to watch someone else lift the trophy. Then he walked into a title game and shredded the defense that has ended so many dreams. That sequence alone keeps his case alive.
Lamar Jackson put together a wild season in 2016. He finished with 3543 passing yards, 1571 rushing yards and 51 total touchdowns. A month before ballots were due, he looked untouchable and appeared on almost every voter radar. Watson stayed close, then kept closing. By year end he had 4593 passing yards, 41 touchdown passes, and 629 rushing yards with 9 more scores. Clemson played a tougher schedule and kept winning.
Then came the night that still defines him. Against Alabama in the title game, Watson threw for 420 yards and 3 scores and ran for another touchdown. He finished the last drive with the soft shovel to Hunter Renfrow that you still see every playoff season. After the game Dabo Swinney looked straight into cameras and said this proved what he had been saying all year, that his quarterback was the best player in the country.
In that locker room, the Heisman became fuel. Watson has said he wanted it, and that losing stung, but the ring mattered more. You can see that edge when you rewatch the final quarter. Maybe Jackson was the right winner. Maybe it was a race with two correct answers. But if you sit down and let the full season plus that Alabama game wash over you, it is hard not to feel like Watson season should live in the Heisman Trophy snubs column forever.
3. Christian McCaffrey Heisman Trophy snub
Christian McCaffrey did something in 2015 that was supposed to be out of reach. He broke Barry Sanders single season all purpose yardage record. Sanders had 3250. McCaffrey finished with 3864 all purpose yards, a number that still feels unreal when you say it out loud.
He rushed for more than 2000 yards. He added hundreds as a receiver and became a constant threat in the return game. Against Southern California in the Pac 12 title game he piled up 461 all purpose yards. That night he scored as a runner and a receiver and even threw a touchdown pass. It felt like one of those performances where the sport collectively nods and says, yes, that is the Heisman winner.
Derrick Henry won the trophy after leading the nation in rushing for Alabama. He was a worthy star. But McCaffrey all around workload and record breaking total told a different story. David Shaw kept calling him the best player in the country. You could hear the exasperation in his voice late that season when he talked about how much McCaffrey meant to every part of Stanford plan.
After the ceremony, a report confirmed what West Coast fans had worried about. At least one voter admitted he rarely stayed up to watch Stanford late kickoffs and still left McCaffrey off his ballot. That confession spread fast and the reaction was rough. It felt like proof that the process did not match the size of the season.
I still think about that year whenever McCaffrey rips off another absurd game in the pros. He had a season that checked every box you can name. Record broken. Big games dominated. Teammates and coaches shouting his name from every podium. Yet when it came time to vote, the stiff arm went somewhere else.
2. Vince Young loses New York vote
Before the confetti in Pasadena, before the fourth down sprint to the pylon, Vince Young was the runner up. The Heisman went to Reggie Bush. That is the part that feels stranger each year.
Young 2005 regular season was a monster. He threw for 3036 yards with 26 touchdown passes and 10 interceptions. He added 1050 rushing yards and 12 rushing scores. No major college player had ever combined more than 3000 passing yards with more than 1000 rushing yards in one year. Texas ran through its schedule and walked into the title game undefeated.
Bush had his own highlight tape season for Southern California. Then the rest of the story unfolded. Young dropped 467 total yards and 3 rushing touchdowns on Southern California in the Rose Bowl. Texas beat a team on a long winning streak by a score of 41 to 38. Most people who watched still treat that as one of the greatest title games the sport has ever seen.
In 2010 Bush forfeited his Heisman after the NCAA found he had received impermissible benefits. The trophy spot stayed empty until 2024, when it was finally restored. During that long gap, plenty of people asked if Young should be recognized in some way. He politely shot down that idea. The championship meant more to him. Mack Brown, his coach, never stopped saying that Young belonged in any serious talk about the best college players ever.
Here is what sticks with me. Young played the season kids imagine in their backyards. He carried Texas, then beat a powerhouse in a game that still airs every offseason. Yet his name is not followed by the word Heisman in the record books. That disconnect is exactly why this list exists.
1. Ndamukong Suh Heisman Trophy snub
If you make a list of Heisman Trophy snubs, this is where most people end up. In 2009, Ndamukong Suh turned Nebraska defensive line into a weekly horror film for opposing offenses. His stat line jumps off the page. He recorded 85 tackles, 20.5 tackles for loss, 12 sacks and a pile of pass breakups and blocked kicks.
The night that lives forever came in the Big 12 title game. Suh spent the whole evening living in the Texas backfield. He finished with 12 tackles, 7 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks on Colt McCoy. Nebraska almost stole the game and the national title picture before officials put one second back on the clock. Texas kicked the winning field goal and survived, but Suh still walked off as the most valuable player.
Awards voters noticed. Suh swept the major defensive trophies and also won the Associated Press Player of the Year award. In the Heisman race, he finished fourth with 815 points behind Mark Ingram, Toby Gerhart and Colt McCoy. According to official records, that 815 total remains the highest ever for a fourth place finisher.
People who tried to block him still sound shaken when they talk about that year. One Texas assistant said facing Suh felt like a nightmare, even after coaching against some of the best pass rushers of the modern era. Watch that title game again. He tosses guards backward during warmups. He shrugs off double teams like they are training drills. It looks like a player trying to drag a whole program to a different level by himself.
A defensive tackle sweeps every major award, destroys the conference title game and still finishes behind three offensive players. That is not just a tough voting result. It is a flashing sign that the system might never fully reward a defender like that. If Suh could not win, who ever will.
What comes next
The strange part is that distance has not cooled these arguments. If anything, rewatches have made the Heisman Trophy snubs feel bigger. Every time a network runs the Rose Bowl, or shows McCaffrey sprinting through a defense, or plays that Big 12 title tape, the same thought pops up. How did the votes land the other way.
The award will not change what actually happened. Young still stretched the ball across that goal line. Suh still crushed the Texas pocket. McCaffrey still passed a Sanders record people thought would stand forever. But the trophy room shapes how new fans learn this history. It tells them who mattered most.
So here is the question that hangs over the next twenty years.
Do Heisman voters ever change what they value, or do we just keep adding seasons to the snub list.
Also read: https://sportsorca.com/college-sports/ncaaf/trick-plays-shocked-defenses/
I’m a sports and pop culture junkie who loves the buzz of a big match and the comfort of a great story on screen. When I’m not chasing highlights and hot takes, I’m planning the next trip, hunting for underrated films or debating the best clutch moments with anyone who will listen.
