Schools With the Most Heisman Winners

USC has the most Heisman Trophy winners of any school, with eight, standing alone atop college football’s most prestigious individual award. Notre Dame, Ohio State and Oklahoma are tied just behind with seven each, and Alabama sits fifth with four, all won since 2009.

The Heisman has gone to the best player in college football every year since 1935, and the schools that stack up the most are the sport’s true blue bloods. Below is the ranked list, the players behind every total, and how each program built its count, all figures through the 2025 season, won by Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza.

At a glance: the ranked list

Rank	School	Winners	Notable names	Why it ranks here
1	USC	8	O.J. Simpson, Marcus Allen, Caleb Williams	Most winners of any school; six decades of skill-position stars
2	Notre Dame	7	Angelo Bertelli, Paul Hornung, Tim Brown	Mid-century dynasty; four winners in an 11-year span
3	Ohio State	7	Archie Griffin (x2), Eddie George, Troy Smith	Home to the only two-time Heisman winner ever
4	Oklahoma	7	Billy Sims, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray	Back-to-back QB winners in 2017 and 2018
5	Alabama	4	Derrick Henry, DeVonta Smith, Bryce Young	All four came in the Saban era, starting in 2009
6	LSU	3	Billy Cannon, Joe Burrow, Jayden Daniels	Two winners in a five-season stretch (2019, 2023)
7	Florida State	3	Charlie Ward, Chris Weinke, Jameis Winston	All three QBs won it in a national-title season
8	Auburn	3	Pat Sullivan, Bo Jackson, Cam Newton	Newton paired his Heisman with a 2010 national title

1. USC — 8 Heisman winners

USC’s eight Heisman winners span nearly six decades, from Mike Garrett in 1965 to Caleb Williams in 2022. In between came O.J. Simpson (1968), Charles White (1979), Marcus Allen (1981), Carson Palmer (2002), Matt Leinart (2004) and Reggie Bush (2005), a run of skill-position brilliance no other school matches. Bush’s award adds a twist: it was vacated in 2010 during an NCAA case, then reinstated by the Heisman Trust in 2024, restoring USC’s total to eight. No other program has cracked eight winners.

2. Notre Dame — 7 Heisman winners

Notre Dame’s seven winners are Angelo Bertelli (1943), Johnny Lujack (1947), Leon Hart (1949), Johnny Lattner (1953), Paul Hornung (1956), John Huarte (1964) and Tim Brown (1987). Four of those seven came in an 11-season stretch from 1943 to 1953, one of the most concentrated Heisman runs by any program, reflecting Notre Dame’s dominance under coach Frank Leahy. Hornung remains the only Heisman winner from a team with a losing record, and Brown’s 1987 win, built on punt and kick returns, is the most unconventional path to the trophy in the school’s history.

3. Ohio State — 7 Heisman winners

Ohio State’s seven trophies come from six different players: Les Horvath (1944), Vic Janowicz (1950), Howard “Hopalong” Cassady (1955), Archie Griffin (1974 and 1975), Eddie George (1995) and Troy Smith (2006). Griffin is the only two-time winner in Heisman history, and no one has come within a full season of matching him since; he remains the sport’s clearest standard for sustained dominance. The gap between Cassady’s 1955 win and Griffin’s first trophy in 1974 is nearly two decades, showing Ohio State’s Heismans have arrived in bursts across eras rather than one dynasty stretch.

4. Oklahoma — 7 Heisman winners

Oklahoma’s seven winners are Billy Vessels (1952), Steve Owens (1969), Billy Sims (1978), Jason White (2003), Sam Bradford (2008), Baker Mayfield (2017) and Kyler Murray (2018). The Mayfield-to-Murray run is the headline: back-to-back Heisman-winning quarterbacks from the same school in consecutive seasons, both of whom went on to be first-overall NFL draft picks. Bradford makes it three Oklahoma Heisman quarterbacks since 2003. Sims, by contrast, won his as a bruising running back in 1978, giving Oklahoma’s total a mix of eras and positions few programs can match.

5. Alabama — 4 Heisman winners

Alabama’s four Heisman winners, Mark Ingram II (2009), Derrick Henry (2015), DeVonta Smith (2020) and Bryce Young (2021), all arrived under Nick Saban, and all in a 13-season window. That is notable because Alabama, despite decades of national prominence before Saban, had zero Heisman winners until Ingram broke through in 2009. The four span three positions, running back, receiver and quarterback, and Alabama’s rise from zero to four winners in scarcely more than a decade is the fastest accumulation on this list.

6. LSU — 3 Heisman winners

LSU’s three winners are Billy Cannon (1959), Joe Burrow (2019) and Jayden Daniels (2023). Burrow’s 2019 season, 60 touchdown passes, a national championship and the largest Heisman vote margin in the award’s history, is regularly ranked among the greatest single seasons in college football. Daniels followed just four years later, meaning two of LSU’s three Heismans came inside a five-season stretch. Cannon’s 1959 win, capped by an 89-yard punt-return touchdown against Ole Miss, remains one of the most famous single plays in Heisman lore.

7. Florida State — 3 Heisman winners

Florida State’s three winners, Charlie Ward (1993), Chris Weinke (2000) and Jameis Winston (2013), were all quarterbacks, and all three won the award in the same season their team won the national championship, a clean sweep no other school on this list can claim. Weinke’s win came at age 28, the oldest Heisman winner in the award’s history, after several years of minor-league baseball before returning to college football. Winston’s 2013 win, as a true freshman, made him the youngest Heisman winner at the time.

8. Auburn — 3 Heisman winners

Auburn’s three winners are Pat Sullivan (1971), Bo Jackson (1985) and Cam Newton (2010). Newton’s season is the standout: he won the Heisman, the BCS national championship and was the No. 1 overall NFL draft pick, all within about four months, a run matched by very few players in any sport. Jackson’s 1985 win came in a tight vote over Iowa’s Chuck Long, one of the closest margins in Heisman history. Sullivan’s 1971 trophy, Auburn’s first, came as a passer in an era when the award leaned heavily toward running backs.

The next tier: seven schools tied at three

Four more programs also have three Heisman winners each: Florida (Steve Spurrier 1966, Danny Wuerffel 1996, Tim Tebow 2007), Nebraska (Johnny Rodgers 1972, Mike Rozier 1983, Eric Crouch 2001), Michigan (Tom Harmon 1940, Desmond Howard 1991, Charles Woodson 1997) and Army (Doc Blanchard 1945, Glenn Davis 1946, Pete Dawkins 1958), West Point’s trio all arriving within 13 years of World War II.

How we ranked this list

Schools are ranked strictly by total Heisman wins, counting every individual trophy, so Archie Griffin’s two wins both count toward Ohio State’s total. Ties are broken alphabetically. A vacated-then-reinstated award, like Reggie Bush’s 2005 trophy, counts once the Heisman Trust’s ruling restores it, matching the award’s own official record.

The 2026 season

Entering the 2026 season, USC’s lead at eight is unchallenged, and no program has closed the gap on the top four since Caleb Williams’ 2022 win. The newest addition to the sport’s Heisman map is Indiana, whose quarterback Fernando Mendoza won the 2025 award, the program’s first winner ever, after a 13-0 regular season. It’s a reminder the leaderboard can still shift: Alabama had zero Heisman winners as recently as 2008, and now has four.

USC remains the program with the most Heisman Trophy winners, with eight, ahead of Notre Dame, Ohio State and Oklahoma at seven apiece, Alabama at four, and a cluster of blue bloods, LSU, Florida State and Auburn among them, tied at three. For how these programs stack up beyond individual awards, see our look at the most popular college sports, and for passers who carried Heisman seasons into the pros, see most passing yards all-time. For the flip side of Heisman history, see the youngest Heisman winner ever crowned.