The college football calendar has numerous circled dates, including spring ball in March and April, the start to summer camp in late July, virtually every fall Saturday (and many Thursdays and Fridays) between September and November and for lucky teams, some postseason dates in December and January.
And, oh yea, a certain early weekend in the first part of December that takes place in New York.
A slightly under-the-radar tradition is college football’s conference media days in July where coaches, players and all facets of the media landscape that cover the teams converge to generate hype and publicity for the upcoming season.
Formerly one-day affairs that started in the late 1980s and early 90s, they now span two to four days, giving hungry-for-football fanbases plenty of college football content to sustain them for another another few weeks until camp starts.
More often that not, a future Heisman winner is in attendance. A year ago, 2024 Heisman winner Travis Hunter joined fellow top-10 Heisman vote-getter Shedeur Sanders among Colorado’s player attendees at the Big 12 Media Days.
The Big 12 kicked off the slate of 2025 power conference media days this week, wrapping up its 48-hour press session today in Frisco, Texas, and the 2025 Heisman winner — and perhaps a top 10 finisher or two — may have been in attendance.
Among the high profile Big 12 players this week were Arizona State QB Sam Leavitt, Kansas State QB Avery Johnson, Arizona QB Noah Fifita and Kansas QB Jalon Daniels.
The SEC Media Days are scheduled for July 14-17 in Atlanta while the Big Ten Media Days is set for July 22-24 in Las Vegas. The ACC is holding its conference the same three days in Charlotte, N.C. Time will tell, but a future Heisman winner will likely be chatting up football scribes and announcers at one of these in the coming weeks.
In 2023, defending Heisman winner Caleb Williams made his second straight media day appearance for USC while across the country, second-year LSU QB Jayden Daniels appeared at the SEC Media Day.
Joe Burrow, also a second-year LSU Heisman winner, was among the Tiger stars at the 2019 SEC media day.
Bryce Young won the starting QB job at Alabama in 2021, but Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban opted to keep Young out of the media day spotlight that July. Similarly, 2018 Heisman winner and first-year starter Kyler Murray was not tapped by then Oklahoma Coach Lincoln Riley for that summer’s Big 12 media session.
But Murray’s former teammate and Sooner veteran Baker Mayfield appeared in both 2016 and in his Heisman-winning season of 2017.
Lamar Jackson appeared for Louisville at the ACC Media Days in 2016 while Oregon’s Marcus Mariota repped the Ducks in 2013 and in his winning 2014 season.
Jameis Winston took the college football world —and the Heisman — by storm as a Florida State redshirt freshman and was a star at the 2014 ACC Media Days the following summer.
Johnny Manziel was a first-year starter and understandably was not taken by Texas A&M to its first SEC media conference in 2012. He did appear in 2013.
A year earlier, Robert Griffin III was one of the stars of the Big 12’s 2011 Media Days.
Alabama 2009 winner Mark Ingram spoke at the SEC Media Day in 2010, but not ahead of his winning 2009 season.
Similarly, Florida’s 2007 winner Tim Tebow was a star attraction at the SEC Media Days in 2008 and 2009, ahead of his third- and fifth-place Heisman finishes. But he was kept under wraps in 2007.
Returning Heisman winner Matt Leinart was in high demand at the Pac-10’s 2005 Media Day. So would have been his teammate and future Heisman winner Reggie Bush, but teams were permitted to bring just one player that year.
And that was one of the few times Bush was stopped all of 2005.
