Louisville Football: 3 Takeaways from loss to North Carolina State

2. Lamar Jackson is being evaluated against an elevated standard

There’s a reason why only one player has repeated as the Heisman Trophy winner. Amazing is only amazing because it’s something that the nation has never seen before. Lamar Jackson showed flutters of brilliance as a freshman. But a Music City Bowl win will hardly gain you a national stage. Jackson took that attention by force as a sophomore, soundly winning the Heisman Trophy.

Here are Jackson’s season averages from his Heisman winning season: 272.5 passing yards per game, 120.8 rushing yards per game and 3.9 touchdowns per game. On Thursday night he threw for 354 yards, one touchdown and one interception and added two more scores on 73 yards rushing. So far in 2017 Jackson is averaging 331.7 passing yards per game, 85 rushing yards per game and 3.5 touchdowns. Very similar numbers, with a fraction of the hype.

It’s one thing to have yet another game with 400+ yards of total offense. It’s another thing to do it when everyone on both sides of the field knows the gameplan.

The Heisman is a quarterback award. Right or wrong, recent history has proven that it takes a confluence of many factors for even the best running backs to take home the trophy. With all the preseason hype surrounding Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen, Jackson has flown under the radar, despite putting up impressive numbers once again.

Make no mistake. Lamar Jackson is still the best player at the quarterback position in college football. Unless you change the criteria for the Heisman trophy, he’s the most deserving man through six games of the 2017 season so far.