Kirk Herbstreit names Boise State's Ashton Jeanty as 2024 Offensive Player of the Year in annual Herbie Awards

Boise State star running back Ashton Jeanty is Kirk Herbstreit’s offensive player of the year in college football, earning the honor during ESPN’s now-annual “Herbie Awards.” Jeanty eclipsed 2000 rushing yards in 2024.

For his efforts, Jeanty won the Doak Walker Award, given annually to the nation’s top running back. He’s also a finalist for the Heisman Trophy.

Jeanty finished the 2024 regular season and Mountain West title game — a 13 game run — with 2497 yards and 29 touchdowns, both nation-leading figures.

And most of all, he’s putting up numbers that at least put him in the conversation with Barry Sanders and his legendary 1988 season.

“That’s a mic drop, right? That’s all you’ve gotta say,” Herbstreit said. “And here’s a team that got all the way to the college football playoff, and without him they’d have no shot. He puts that Heisman pose up, I don’t know if he’s going to win that, but he did have a monster year. Cannot wait to see how he performs now as they get ready to play in a playoff game.”

And Jeanty, who was invited to New York as a Heisman finalist, was ready to make his case this week.

Jeanty made his most definitive argument to the Heisman voters during a recent appearance on Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parson’s The Edge podcast, citing his absolute dominance over every team he played this season.

“First of all, all the Heisman finalists are all great players. I’ve watched multiple of their games, and obviously got to play against Dillon Gabriel, see him live, so they’re all great players. But I just think for me, you go week-by-week and watch the film, by Week 4 I wasn’t seeing anything less than an eight-man box. That means the whole defense, every single week, is geared to stopping me and they still couldn’t,” Jeanty said. “Some might have slowed me down, but I wouldn’t even say that because I just didn’t play my best, which is human nature. But I feel like there’s that, and for the people that want to talk about conferences, OK, whatever. But when I played in games against ranked teams, I put up big numbers against them and proved that it doesn’t matter who I’m playing against, I’m a great player on the field. And then, just for us to win the conference, not only that, but (also) make history and bring Boise State to their first-ever Playoff appearance, I feel like there you go. That was the final checked box, you know what I’m saying.

“Being a leader and a captain on this team, I’m not out here to toot my own horn, but I have put a lot of work in and helped lead this team to the success that we have right now. A lot of other great players and teammates have as well, but a big part of that was on me, since the bigging of the year, the pressure was on me to lead the team and help us get to where we need to be.”