Ohio State Football: Chase Young deserves to win the Heisman

One Ohio State football player has been the biggest difference maker in college football and should be the front-runner to win the Heisman Trophy.

Ohio State defensive end Chase Young is an absolute monster on the field, and it’s finally not just Buckeye fans who are taking notice. He is consistently mentioned as being the best player in college football.

DraftWire had this to say when analyzing the Buckeye DE.

"If your favorite NFL team ends up picking high in the 2020 draft, and they don’t need a quarterback, they could end up stealing the best player in the country.That’s what will happen if Ohio State pass rusher Chase Young goes anywhere but the No. 1 overall pick next April."

That’s great for an NFL franchise that wants to completely transform their defensive line, but what is he doing at the college level? Here is what ESPN and Pro Football Focus have to say about Young.

"Ohio State junior defensive end Chase Young is doing things we’ve never seen in our six years of grading college football players at Pro Football Focus. And he’s changing games in a way we’ve never seen in all our years of watching college football."

Alright, so that’s pretty good. The game changing number being refered to is Chase Young’s 96.6 pass-rush grade per PFF which is absolutely ridiculous.

On the season, Young has 13.5 sacks, 15.5 tackles for a loss, 29 total tackles and 5 forced fumbles according to Sports Reference. These numbers put him in a league of his own in college football this season.

The Ohio State football program has had a remarkable string of quality defensive ends with both Bosa brothers elevating the position. But Chase Young might be better than any defensive end to play for the Buckeyes.

He is currently .5 sacks away from tying the all-time Ohio State record for sacks in a season, and that is with 4 games to go in the regular season. He just had 4 sacks in one game!

But, enough about his statistics, I am here to make an argument that he should be leading the Heisman conversation. The Heisman Trophy is supposed to go to the best player in college football – and as the national media is finally pointing out what we have known all season – Chase Young is the best player in football.

A defensive player has only won the Heisman once, and that player also played wide receiver and returned punts, so I struggle to say he won only because of his achievements on defense. Apart from clearly leaning toward offensive players, the award almost always go to a quarterback.

Here is my issue with this. Are you telling me every year the best player in all of college football is a quarterback?

Out of 22 positions on the field the quarterback is always the best player? I don’t buy it.

The QB is easiest to look at as far as numbers and see how he affects a game. 300 is a much bigger number than 4, even though those 4 sacks might have a bigger impact on the game than 300 total yards passing.

Young has consistently been the biggest difference maker in college football when he is on the field, and should be recognized as such. Heisman voters need to stop looking at numbers and start looking at each player’s impact on the field.

If the award truly belongs to the best player in football, regardless of position, then Chase Young just proved that he should be strongly considered for the prestigious award. Who do you think deserves to be the Heisman frontrunner at this point, the outstanding DE or a QB putting up big numbers?