Ashton Jeanty won. Travis Hunter lost. These results did impact The Athletic’s Heisman Trophy straw poll — ever so slightly, with Hunter losing two first-place votes to drop to 24, and Jeanty doubling his first-place votes to get to two.

Miami quarterback Cam Ward got the other first-place vote, picking it up after throwing for 280 yards and two touchdowns in a rout of Wake Forest, breaking Bernie Kosar’s single-season records for completions (263) and passing yards (3,774) in the process.

But this remains a two-man race, technically, and a rout in reality.

Hunter is oddsmakers’ overwhelming favorite to take home the award and leads this poll with 78 points to Jeanty’s 52. Ward is third with 15 points, and Penn State tight end Tyler Warren and Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel have seven and six points, respectively.

The Athletic follows the same voting protocol as that of the Heisman: three points for a first-place vote, two points for a second-place vote, one point for a third-place vote.

Hunter had another big night offensively for Colorado, catching eight passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns against Kansas. He also had seven tackles and a pass break-up on defense, but the Buffaloes were collectively dominated on that side of the ball in a 37-21 loss. Deion Sanders’ team lost control of its College Football Playoff hopes in the process, but that doesn’t change the prevailing belief that Hunter is the best player in the country.

Jeanty extended his nation-leading totals to 2,062 yards and 27 rushing touchdowns in a 17-13 win over Wyoming, in which he suffered a leg injury, missed time, returned and finished with 169 yards — 60 of them on three critical runs in Boise State’s winning touchdown drive. That’s compelling stuff, but not compelling enough.

Jeanty has a regular-season finale against Oregon State and the Mountain West title game to give himself a jolt. If he could break Barry Sanders’ single-season NCAA rushing record, he’d be hard to beat. That’s 567 yards away.

Jeanty is a likely lock to make it to the ceremony in New York, though, and that’s no small thing for a player outside a power conference. In the past 40 years, just 10 players at schools that are not currently in a Power 4 league have made it to New York. The last to do it was Northern Illinois quarterback Jordan Lynch in 2013.

That list also consists of Temple running back Paul Palmer in 1986, Holy Cross running back/defensive back Gordie Lockbaum in 1987,  Air Force quarterback Dee Dowis in 1989, San Diego State running back Marshall Faulk in 1992, Alcorn State quarterback Steve McNair in 1994, Marshall receiver Randy Moss in 1997, Marshall quarterback Chad Pennington in 1999, Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan in 2007 and another Boise State Bronco, quarterback Kellen Moore, in 2010.

Two quarterbacks who were receiving votes in the poll — Indiana’s Kurtis Rourke and Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart — are absent this week after losses to Ohio State and Florida, respectively. There is a new name, courtesy of Colorado’s face plant: Kansas running back Devin Neal, who had 287 yards of offense and four touchdowns against the Buffs.

(Photo: Loren Orr / Getty Images)

The Dodgers won the World Series last season in spite of their short-handed pitching.

Next year, they hope a reinforced staff can be the key to defending their title.

To that end, the Dodgers made a major move Tuesday night, agreeing to a five-year, $182-million contract with two-time Cy Young Award winning pitcher Blake Snell pending a physical, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly.

The deal, which includes a $52-million signing bonus and some deferred money, was first signaled Tuesday night by Snell, who posted to Instagram a photoshopped image of himself in a Dodgers jersey. The caption read “LA” with an eyeballs emoji.

Suddenly, a year after the Dodgers added frontline arms Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow for more than $1 billion combined, their latest addition was clear. Once again, they had flung their wallet wide open. Once again, they had made a blockbuster addition to their starting rotation.

Snell, 31, has been one of the top left-handed pitchers in the game during his nine-year career. Though he has only once been an All-Star, the 6-foot-4 Seattle native won the American League Cy Young with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2018, the National League Cy Young with the San Diego Padres in 2023, and has amassed a 3.19 ERA and 1,368 strikeouts over 211 career starts.

Originally drafted in the first round by Tampa Bay in 2011 — when Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ current president of baseball operations, was running the Rays’ front office — Snell has flashed some of the majors’ best stuff in the last decade.

He pairs his mid-90s fastball with a curveball, changeup and slider — all three of which registered whiff rates of 44% or higher last season. He has averaged 11.2 strikeouts per nine innings in his career, the highest mark in major league history. And he has a track record of postseason success, with a 3.33 ERA in 12 career playoff appearances.

Durability and consistency have been issues. Snell has pitched more than 130 innings only twice (eclipsing 180 in each of his two Cy Young seasons). And while he has posted a sub-3.40 ERA in a season five times, he has also suffered ERAs above 4.00 in three other seasons.

Still, when Snell is right, there are few better pitchers in the game.

And even though the Dodgers managed to piece together just enough on the mound in October to win a championship, they entered this offseason hoping to shore up their staff with an established, high-caliber arm exactly like him.

The Dodgers made a play for Snell late in his free agency last offseason, when his market failed to materialize as expected coming off his 2023 Cy Young in San Diego.

However, the Giants ultimately landed his services with a two-year, $62-million deal that included an opt-out this winter which Snell exercised.

Snell’s 2024 season didn’t begin well. He missed most of spring training after signing in mid-March. He had 9.51 ERA at the end of June, having made only six starts in the first three months because of multiple stints on the injured list. And at one point, he seemed likely to exercise his 2025 option, and try to rebuild his stock this coming year.

But then, Snell went on a tear during the second half, going 5-0 with an 1.23 ERA over his final 14 outings — including a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 2.

That run re-established Snell as one of the top arm’s on this year’s market, alongside Corbin Burnes and Max Fried. And it led to a signing Tuesday that, given the Dodgers’ flirtation with Snell last offseason, felt like a long time coming, even though the Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees were reportedly making a push for Snell before he signed with the Dodgers.

The Dodgers, of course, hoped they had solved their pitching issues with their other offseason additions last year, when they signed Yamamoto to a record $325-million contract and traded for Glasnow and signed him to a $136.5-million extension (Ohtani was unable to pitch in 2024 while recovering from a Tommy John revision).

During the season, though, Yamamoto missed several months because of a shoulder injury, Glasnow was lost late in the year to an elbow injury and the rest of the Dodgers’ rotation crumbled around them, leaving the team with just three healthy starters — including trade deadline acquisition Jack Flaherty — entering the playoffs.

Thanks to a deep bullpen and potent lineup, it was still enough for the Dodgers to win the World Series.

But as the team looked ahead to next year, when it is expected to use a six-man rotation as Ohtani resumes pitching, the rotation became a clear need.

And Snell became the club’s most obvious target.

The Dodgers could still add more pitching this winter. Flaherty and Walker Buehler remain free agents, and have voiced their desire to stay with the team next year. Star Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki is also expected to sign with an MLB club in January, with the Dodgers seen as a likely landing spot for the 23-year-old flame-thrower.

But as it stands now, the Dodgers will have Ohtani, Yamamoto, Glasnow and now Snell headlining their rotation. They will have Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, Bobby Miller and Clayton Kershaw (who is still expected to re-sign with the team) serving as depth. And they should have a greater margin for error in case more injuries arise, after making Snell the latest nine-figure pitching acquisition to their increasingly star-studded staff.

The numbers alone are frightening.

Viktor Gyokeres has made 25 appearances for club and country so far in 2024-25. He has scored 33 goals.

He was top scorer in the Portuguese top flight for Sporting CP last season with 29 goals (eight more than anyone else). He has already scored 16 in the league this season (again, eight more than anyone else) and only failed to score in six of those 25 games in all competitions.

He scored nine for Sweden in the recent Nations League group stages. He has scored 67 goals in 69 matches for Sporting since joining from Coventry City for a bargain £17million ($21.4m).

At the age of 26, he is coming into his prime and will be one of the most sought-after players in European football in the coming months.

Oh, and to prove he doesn’t just score in a weaker league than Europe’s top divisions, he scored a Champions League hat-trick against Manchester City the other week too.

Not bad for a player who was in English football’s second tier just 18 months ago.

What is behind Gyokeres’ rapid rise to prominence? And is this form temporary or permanent?

The Athletic spoke to key figures from Gyokeres’ three clubs prior to his move to Lisbon, to find out if his incredible goalscoring feats were inevitable…

Talking of striking numbers, no fewer than eight of the most recent Sweden squad either came through the academy at IF Brommapojkarna (translation: the Bromma boys) in Stockholm, or have played for the club at some point in their careers.

More commonly known as BP, they gave Gyokeres his first-team debut in 2015, aged just 16. That’s not an uncommon occurrence for a club which prides itself in promoting young players, including one of the other form players in Europe right now in Dejan Kulusevski, as well as his young team-mate at Tottenham Hotspur, Lucas Bergvall.

BP are fairly unique in their approach. Their first team flit between divisions and are currently in the top flight, finishing tenth out of 16 this season. Former Aston Villa defender Olof Mellberg will finish his second spell as manager when his contract expires on December 1, after which he will take over at MLS side St. Louis City FC.

But BP are a club known far more for the talent they produce rather than the trophies they win. They basically have more players than fans, with 4,000 spread over youth and grassroots levels (compared to an average home attendance of around 2,000).

The academy is well structured and well renowned, with a culture of youth development, as well as a football ideology which is possession-based and involves high pressing.

Gyokeres stood out from a very early age. Unsurprisingly, given the career he has gone on to have, it was for his ruthlessness in front of goal more than anything else.

“If he had the chance to score, it doesn’t matter if he broke his leg, he needs to score,” says Peter Kisfaludy, who now works at Swedish top-flight side Djurgarden and held a variety of roles at BP including academy director.

“Gyokeres wants to go directly to goal — he is powerful, he gives 100 per cent in the box. If you’re gonna kick the ball away, he can move his head to get the ball back. He is not afraid, he is totally ruthless.

“He grew a lot and didn’t have the technique for it initially. He has always been so physical. He could play senior football early because he was strong and fast.

“It’s his winning mentality. He went on loan to St Pauli in Germany and I remember when he was there we spoke on the phone and he said, ‘I’m so lonely but this is only going to make me much stronger’.

(Lars Baron/Getty Images)

“The good thing with Viktor is he can score in so many ways. He is a box player but he can also drive forward with the ball because he is fast and strong.”

It wasn’t a smooth road to the top for Gyokeres, far from it. Youthful petulance got in the way at times, as Andreas Engelmark, BP’s current academy director who has been at the club for many years, adds: “I had him in school sessions when he was 13.

“I remember I spoke to him one time and said, ‘If you want to become a professional player, you can’t do this’. He wasn’t behaving properly but it wasn’t anything really bad. He said, ‘I’m not going to be a professional player’.

“So I said, ‘OK, I’m not going to push you’. And of course, he wanted me to really, but this was his mentality when he was young. He could be a little bit grumpy.

“Then he came to the club permanently when he was 15 and he was pushing hard. Great kid, positive, working hard, big confidence and the physicality you can see now he had from an early age.

“The physicality, the directness to go to goal and be able to finish. The same things you see now. He scored a lot of goals.”

A return of 25 goals in 67 first-team appearances for BP is modest compared to the numbers he is putting up now at Sporting, but Gyokeres was a rough diamond who needed polishing. The potential, though, was evident.

His final act at BP? To score a hat-trick on the final day of the season as the club won promotion to the top flight.

Brighton barely make a mis-step when assessing the potential of young talent.

Like BP, they are a leading light in Europe in terms of taking raw, talented players and making them whole, albeit on a much bigger stage in the Premier League.

Moises Caicedo, Ben White, Yves Bissouma, Evan Ferguson, Alexis Mac Allister, etc, it’s an extensive list. And Gyokeres is on it in terms of being a player that Brighton spotted, signed and nurtured… but he left the club without making a league appearance.

It’s hard to believe, given their track record, that a few short years later a player Brighton let go is now one of the most desired in European football.

“Players develop at different rates,” the club’s long-serving chief executive Paul Barber tells The Athletic. “Sometimes pathways are unavoidably blocked, so a loan or permanent move is a better option, particularly if the player really wants to be settled sooner.”

Gyokeres was 19 when he moved to the English south coast in January 2018, initially playing for Brighton’s under-23 side before getting the odd appearance in domestic cup competitions.

He made his debut against Southampton in the EFL Cup in August that same year, played in the FA Cup a few times and scored against Portsmouth in the EFL Cup in 2020, in and around loan spells with St Pauli, Swansea and Coventry.

(Glyn Kirk/PA Images via Getty Images)

Those loan spells weren’t too fruitful in terms of goals (none in 11 appearances for Swansea in the Championship, mostly as a substitute), though, and with first-team opportunities limited at Brighton, the decision was taken to move him on.

Physically, Gyokeres was ready, but technically he still needed a bit of work. Graham Potter was head coach at the time and wanted a No 9 who could drop deeper and link play.

For the Under-21s, they had Aaron Connolly in the central striker role, while in the first-team Brighton had senior strikers Danny Welbeck and Neal Maupay blocking Gyokeres’ path and Ferguson was starting to come through, meaning Gyokeres played much of his time at Brighton out on the wing. It just didn’t work out.

“In 2021, when Viktor was transferred to Coventry, his pathway here wasn’t clear and, with his contract running down, he wanted a permanent home,” Barber explains. “We have to accept the decision to sell for what it was at that time – right for the player, and right for the club.

“What Viktor has gone on to do is fantastic. Everyone is delighted for him. He is a great lad and has become a fantastic player, good luck to him. Player recruitment isn’t an exact science, neither are decisions to move players on or when to do so.

“You can always look back on decisions using the benefit of hindsight but there will always be reasons for them. It’s about making a series of judgments in real time. Most clubs have similar examples. It’s football. It happens.”

Gyokeres, the one that got away.

Gyokeres never really got that chance at Brighton. But it seems it was because he got a chance at Coventry — an opportunity to be the main striker in a Championship side — that he flourished.

The Swede did alright for the Sky Blues during a loan spell in the second half of 2020-21, scoring three goals and showing a bit of potential in appearances mostly made from the bench.

But it was when Coventry signed him permanently for around £1million in the summer of 2021 that Gyokeres, aged 23, began to thrive with the responsibility handed to him by head coach Mark Robins and his assistant Adrian Viveash.

(Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Viveash remembers seeing a visible difference in Gyokeres that summer, before he went into the most prolific period of his career to that point with nine goals in the opening 11 Championship matches.

“He came back first day of pre-season and all the coaches, myself, Dennis Lawrence (first-team coach), we could see the difference in him,” Viveash told The Athletic FC podcast. “He just looked a different person. Bags of confidence, (it) had obviously been alluded to by the club that he was going to be the main man, he was going to play nine.

“He earned the faith that he got in him and he just started to terrorise Championship defences. And for two years, he just got better and better.

“He worked very hard. If you defend on the halfway line against someone like Vik, he is going to keep running in behind. He may miss one or two chances, but he’ll make the run 13, 14, 15 times. And for defenders, that’s very difficult to deal with. So the power and explosive pace came to the fore.”

Coventry spent time working on Gyokeres’ ability with his back to goal in tighter areas, as well as moving across defenders and finishing early. He responded with 38 goals in 91 league appearances at Coventry, earning a move to Sporting in 2023.

His unflinching, headstrong attitude has been a strength for Gyokeres to eventually succeed at senior level, but it has perhaps also led to him being a slightly late developer in terms of how he has taken to instruction from coaches.

“He was a really interesting character to work with because he was so driven,” Viveash adds. “Obviously, I’m a driven coach. I’ve been fortunate to work with some top, top players. He’d say; ‘Well, I’m better than them.’ So we had a good bit of banter while time was going on, but it was a very chatty coach-to-player relationship. The confidence has always been there.

“That run-in power is definitely geared to Premier League football, the back to goal and some of the other things.

“I’m sure he still has to keep developing because you’re playing against bigger and stronger centre-backs in Europe and in the Premier League.

“He’s a really nice lad, very humble and works extremely hard. It’s a lovely story to see somebody develop a little bit later and in a different way because everybody’s different.”

Like at Coventry, it is regular first-XI football at Sporting that Gyokeres needed to continue his progression.

Viveash, who says Gyokeres’ father Stefan plays a key role in guiding and shaping his son’s career moves, believes that whether Gyokeres can thrive in a division like the Premier League or not, he will get the best from his own ability. We may get another glimpse of that against Arsenal in the Champions League on Tuesday night.

(PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP via Getty Images)

“It’s turned out to be an outstanding choice for him and also for Sporting,” he adds.

“He’s not a natural finisher for me. I’ve worked with several that are very natural, he’s not, so that’s great and credit to him for improving that area of his game and certainly hitting the numbers he’s hit.

“If he plays against William Saliba and that physical specimen of Gabriel, who are obviously as good as there is in world football at the moment, you would think then that will add either a positive or negative to the argument.

“He was one of those who deserved the opportunity – and if it (a Premier League move) comes in the future, he’ll certainly give it everything he’s got, that’s for sure.”

(Additional reporting: Andy Naylor)

(Bernardo Benjamim ATP Images/Getty Images)