2013 College Football: Post-Week 3 Heisman Trophy Voting

Each week of the college football season, Athlon Sports will poll some of the nation's foremost college football people from every region of the country. Each voter offers up a top five, and each first-place vote is worth five points. A second-place vote is worth four points, and so on. With 13 voters, a perfect ballot — i.e., 13 first-place votes — would give a player 65 total points.

The Game of the Century this past weekend featured not one, but two Heisman Trophy-caliber quarterbacks. And while Johnny Manziel likely proved he is the most unstoppable player in the nation, he didn't lead his team to victory like AJ McCarron did — who was one of this week's biggest movers. That said, however, it was another quarterback who torched an SEC defense last week that now sits atop the Heisman voting.

Post-Week 3 Voting Results:

Heisman Headlines:

Super Mariota. The Oregon Ducks star quarterback is now atop the Heisman voting. Marcus Mariota threw for 456 yards and four touchdowns on 69.7-percent passing and nary a turnover in Oregon's cakewalk win over SEC member Tennessee. He’s fourth nationally in total offense per game (383.7), has accounted for 11 touchdowns and hasn’t thrown an interception since Nov. 17, 2012.

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The Top 3. Are we starting to finally see some separation in the Heisman race? Following the third week, three names stand well ahead of the rest of the nation. Mariota (53 points), Tajh Boyd (50) and Johnny Manziel (47) took 150 of the possible 195 voting points and each got first-place votes. Todd Gurley is fourth in the voting with a measly 12 points.

Manziel vs. McCarron. One quarterback had better numbers, one team won the game on the road and one team is the two-time defending champion. But AJ McCarron can’t seem to overcome the highlight-reel factor Johnny Manziel brings to the table as voters jumped back on Johnny Heisman’s bandwagon. However, McCarron outplayed Manziel in College Station as he basically had run-pass options at the line the entire game — meaning Nick Saban let his QB call the game — while Manziel made two critical mistakes. Bama has yet to play at home this season and already has two quality wins, so for McCarron to be on just three of 13 ballots seems a tad ridiculous.

No Braxton. Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller entered the season as the front-runner to win the Heisman Trophy. After a sprained MCL in Week 1, Urban Meyer has decided to play it cautiously with his signal-caller. Kenny Guiton started against Cal last weekend and was excellent. Had Miller gotten those 276 yards passing, 92 yards rushing and four total touchdowns, fans can bet he would still be on Heisman ballots everywhere.

West Coast Love. The three new faces in the Athlon Sports Heisman ballot are all quarterbacks from the West Coast. Utah State’s Chuckie Keeton, Washington’s Keith Price and UCLA’s Brett Hundley all got votes following their performances over the weekend. Keeton will play at USC this weekend while Price makes his second appearance in the voting after a second straight quality win. Hundley was arguably the player of the week nationally for his performance against Nebraska in Lincoln.

Dropped Out. Miller, Devin Gardner, Lache Seastrunk and Bryce Petty dropped from the rankings this week. Interestingly, Miller and the two Baylor Bears didn’t play a snap this past weekend. Gardner turned the ball over four times and nearly lost to Akron at home. This voting panel is a tough crowd.

The Voting Panel (click name for twitter accounts):