JD PicKell: Jordan Travis has a legitimate shot to win the Heisman Trophy in 2023

Florida State quarterback Jordan Travis has a legitimate shot to win the Heisman Trophy in 2023 and On3’s J.D. PicKell jumped on the train.

Travis has weapons around him, including wide receivers Johnny Wilson and Keon Coleman, as well as running back Trey Benson. With that type of arsenal, there’s no reason to think the dual threat quarterback can’t win the Heisman.

PicKell broke it down on The Hard Count.

“Jordan Travis, I think, has a very legitimate shot to win the Heisman Trophy,” PicKell said. “His path looks different than Caleb Williams in the sense that Jordan Travis has two early stages. He’s going to have to make a statement like he’s got to hit the campaign trail a little bit early. You got Week 1 in front of the entire country. The game of the weekend. LSU in Orlando, very, very big game. If he loses that game, not the end of the world. But it does kinda create a situation where ‘Hey, Jordan Travis we need to play a bit more catch up.’ 

“Now Week 4, they go to Clemson. Probably also going to be the game of the week. You expect College GameDay to be there, the atmosphere should be electric. That’ll be a big one as well. Both these games are for Jordan Travis to set himself up for the rest of the season. Need to be statement games. Like I need Jordan Travis to go for three touchdowns passing, one rushing and they got a lot of weapons around him to do it.”

PicKell made sure to talk about the weapons around Travis. If the Florida State quarterback takes advantage, Travis is certainly on the Heisman Trophy shortlist. 

“Now you and I both know this, they got Keon Coleman through the portal,” PicKell said. “Johnny Wilson is a six-foot-seven, jump ball weapon … But it goes through Jordan Travis, and he needs big statistical performances in both of those games with the eyes of the nation watching, need him to ball. The reason why we need that to happen early in the season, mot just because those are important games for Florida State’s national title hopes and the game against Clemson for the ACC title hopes, but you look at the rest of the schedule. 

“And knowing what we know right now, you’re not betting on a lot of those teams towards the end of the season for Florida State having the same juice that a Clemson or LSU would have in terms of stage. Because you and I know that’s how it works with the Heisman trophy. It is an award given out to the best player on the best team but to one of the most visible performances, the most visible player on the most visible team and those are going to be very visible stages for the entire country. And you don’t get a lot of other great stages towards the end of the year, depending on Miami and Florida, until the ACC title game.”

Travis and the Heisman Trophy? That sounds pretty good to Seminoles fans. It probably means Florida State went pretty darn far.