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The college football world took a brief break from talking about renewing the A&M/Texas rivalry on Tuesday in order to release opening odds for 2019 Heisman Trophy candidates. You heard that right. Heisman odds...in February.
But as preposterous as this is, it was accompanied by the somewhat surprising revelation that Texas A&M Aggies junior quarterback Kellen Mond has the seventh-best odds of any player, coming in at 50/1.
Opening Heisman odds via @SuperBookUSA
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) February 27, 2019
Tagovailoa 5/2
Lawrence 3/1
Hurts, Fields, Martinez 6/1
Taylor 15/1
Jeudy, Herbert 30/1
Bowman, Daniels, Fromm, Dillon, Etienne, Ehlinger 40/1
Dobbins, Mond, Ross, Swift, Moore 50/1
Book, Costello 60/1
Wesley, Wallace, Sanders, Harris 80/1
The only players with odds better than 10/1 were Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa, Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence, Oklahoma QB Jalen Hurts, Ohio State QB Justin Fields and Nebraska QB Adrian Martinez.
Mond made big strides in his second year in Aggieland and his first season under head coach Jimbo Fisher. He raise his completion percentage by nearly six points and doubled his TD:INT ratio while throwing for 3,107 yards and 24 touchdowns. Those yardage and TD total each rank as the fifth-best passing season in Texas A&M history, behind only Jerrod Johnson (2009), Ryan Tannehill (2011) and Johnny Manziel (2012, 2013).
With six SEC schools losing their QB from the previous year (Arkansas, Auburn, Mississippi State, Missouri, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt), including four SEC West schools, Mond has the opportunity to establish himself as one of the top signal-callers in the conference.