Mandel's Heisman Top 5: Leonard Fournette loses No. 1 spot

By Stewart Mandel
Published

Through six weeks, the 2015 Heisman race is shaping up much more cleanly than the playoff chase. Three players – LSU's Leonard Fournette, TCU's Trevone Boykin and Florida State's Dalvin Cook – have separated themselves from the rest of the field, in my opinion. (Sadly, Georgia RB Nick Chubb's gruesome leg injury Saturday likely ended his campaign.)

Through no fault whatsoever of Fournette's, I moved one of the others ahead of him this week.

1. TCU QB Trevone Boykin: The Frogs' dual-threat dynamo has no choice but to keep rescuing his defensively challenged squad. This time, he broke a 69-yard touchdown run, completed an ensuing two-point conversion and threw a game-winning 55-yard strike to Josh Doctson over a five-minute span to complete a rally from 18 points down against Kansas State. No player in the country is more indispensible to his team right now.

2. LSU RB Leonard Fournette. You know you're having quite the season when you rush for 158 yards against South Carolina and its your lowest output of the season. The sophomore tied an FBS record in cracking the 1,000-yard mark in five games. He falls behind Boykin in part because he's been feasting on woeful competition (Syracuse, Eastern Michigan) for several weeks now.

3. Florida State RB Dalvin Cook. Despite nursing a hamstring injury that kept him out last week, Cook saved the game against Miami with his late 23-yard go-ahead touchdown run. His monstrous night consisted of 222 rushing yards on 22 carries, three catches for 47 yards and three total TDs (2 rushing, 1 receiving). He's averaging a ridiculous 9.0 yards per carry on the season.

4. Houston QB Greg Ward Jr. Cougars coach Tom Herman's Braxton Miller-like clone continues to shine. Thursday against SMU he was 16 of 18 for 243 yards and rushed 14 times for 82 yards, with all four of his touchdowns coming on the ground. He's completing 72.3 percent of his passes on the season.

5. Texas A&M DE Myles Garrett. I had him on here last week, the Aggies had a bye, and I see no reason to take him off. He entered the week fourth in the country with 7.5 sacks.