When College Football Meets the Tour de France

Which college football players deserve the coveted Tour de France leader jerseys?

What does the Tour de France have to do with college football? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But who doesn’t love a good crossover or mashup? The Marvel Comic Universe has netted billions of dollars from the crossover idea. Jay-Z and Linkin Park’s Collision Course album still goes hard at the gym.

So what happens when college football meets the Tour de France? We can discover which players would represent the four leader jerseys of the three-week bike race. This should be interesting.

First, what is the Tour de France? It is the biggest, most prestigious bike race in the world. It is the Super Bowl of cycling. “The Grandaddy of them all,” if you will. It takes place over three weeks and includes 21 stages with two rest days included. Some days are more grueling than others, yet all are exciting to witness.

There are various categories that riders compete for, with the overall winner sporting the Yellow Jersey at the end. The other competitions for leader jerseys include the best young rider, fastest sprinter, and best climber.

Below, we determined which players best represent these different Tour de France categories in the upcoming college football season.

Yellow Jersey (Maillot Jaune)

The Yellow Jersey holder is the overall winner of the Tour de France. He is the one who finishes the three-week race in the least amount of time. It is an individual award that does not happen without the team and staff in full support of the leader.

The leader of the USC football team and the player in the driver’s seat to be considered the best in the 2023 season is signal caller Caleb Williams. He is the betting favorite to win the Heisman Trophy for a second consecutive year and to become the first overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Unless someone comes along with a Joe Burrow-esque senior year type of season, expect a couple of NFL teams to win less for Williams.

Williams’ cobblestoned road to the 2022 Heisman House was paved with 4,537 passing yards, 42 passing touchdowns, a QB rating of 168.5, and a plethora of jaw-dropping plays. He ranked fifth in yards per attempt and QB rating, third in throwing yards, and first in passing touchdowns.

Just like the Tour de France yellow jersey winner, Williams still needs to depend on his teammates around him to be excellent. Just because your team has the best rider does not guarantee team success. The same applies to football.

Pro Football Focus sees the Trojans as the tenth-best team headed into the season. If they hope to challenge for the Pac-12 title and a national championship, Williams will have to be great, and the whole team, especially on the defensive side of the ball, must take a step forward.

However, job one defending USC is slowing down their All-World quarterback. In cycling, opposing teams attempt to isolate the yellow jersey and attack from every angle. This is how team Jumbo-Visma and reigning Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard were able to upset the seemingly unbeatable Tadej Pogačar in 2022.

When the race leader finds himself isolated, he must dig deep and make things happen on his own. When it comes to that, Williams is a magician on a football field.

For now, all signs point to the USC quarterback being the best player at the most pivotal position in college football in 2023. Therefore, he is the Yellow Jersey winner for this College Football Tour de France mashup.