The 2026 Heisman race will most likely head into the season without a clear favorite.
Despite almost two years of media coronation and the most recognizable surname in college football, Arch Manning is sitting at exactly 13% on Kalshi to win the 2026 Heisman Trophy, tied at the top with CJ Carr, a Notre Dame sophomore that most casual fans couldn’t pick out of a lineup.
The prediction markets are refusing to crown a favorite, and the volume behind the top names says this isn’t a thin market; it’s a real disagreement.
Here’s the live Kalshi board, updated every 60 seconds:
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| # | Outcome | Probability | 24h Move | Volume | |
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The Top of the Board: A Three-Way Race
The headline is the tie at the top, but the real story is how flat the entire top half is.
- Arch Manning (Texas) — 13%
- CJ Carr (Notre Dame) — 13%
- Darian Mensah (Duke) — 10%
- Julian Sayin (Ohio State) — 8%
- Trinidad Chambliss (Ole Miss) — 7%
- Dante Moore (Oregon) — 7%
- Josh Hoover (TCU) — 7%
Five names within six points of the leader. Compare that to the SEC and Big Ten title odds, where the favorites have separated by double digits, and you see the difference. The Heisman market is wide open in a way the team-level futures aren’t.
The Volume Tells a Different Story
The order changes when you sort by money instead of probability. Lifetime volume on the top markets:
- Arch Manning — $128.6K
- Darian Mensah — $115.0K
- CJ Carr — $101.8K
- Julian Sayin — $78.8K
- Gunner Stockton — $68.3K
- Trinidad Chambliss — $63.3K
Mensah is second in volume but third in probability. Translation: more retail money has flowed onto Duke’s transfer QB than Notre Dame’s, but the price hasn’t moved with it. That’s a classic sign of public-vs-sharp tension — the public is buying the Mensah story (top-10 finish from a non-blueblood, NFL-caliber arm, easier ACC schedule than Carr’s), and the sharps are holding the line at 10%.
If you trust the SP+ projections, the sharps are right. Duke’s projected ceiling is high but their floor is lower than Notre Dame’s, and Heisman voters reward winning records more than counting stats. Mensah at 10% is a fair price; the public buying him at 10% is essentially betting against the Irish defense imploding.
The QB Lock (And the One Exception)
Nine of the top ten Kalshi markets are quarterbacks. The lone exception: Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State’s wide receiver, sitting at 6%.
That’s not a quirk of this year’s market, it’s the structural reality of the award. According to the official Heisman Trust archive, only one wide receiver has won the trophy since 1991 (DeVonta Smith, 2020). Running backs have done slightly better, but the position has effectively been crowded out of the conversation since the 2010s passing-offense boom.
So when Kalshi prices Jeremiah Smith at 6%, the market isn’t saying “Smith probably won’t have a Heisman season”, it’s saying “even if he does, voters might not give it to him.” That’s the kind of information that doesn’t show up in traditional CFB player props markets. It only surfaces in award futures, where the voting electorate itself is part of the bet.
The Notre Dame Convergence
Reading this board next to our breakdown of the broader CFB futures, one team keeps stacking up: Notre Dame.
The Irish are:
- 35% to go undefeated in the regular season (#1 on Kalshi)
- 80% to make the College Football Playoff (#1 on Kalshi)
- Tied for #1 in the Heisman market via CJ Carr
That’s the same team showing up at the top of three different futures markets. Either the Irish are about to deliver one of the most complete seasons in modern CFB, or this is the most over-bet roster in the country. Both can be edges, the question is which side you take.
Our CLEATZ Take
The market is telling you something specific – don’t pay the Manning tax. If you believe Texas wins the SEC and Manning puts up the numbers everyone assumes he will, 13% is a price you can live with. But there’s no premium baked into the line for the brand name; you’re getting the same odds you’d get on CJ Carr who has shown some flashes, but also fallen flat in big games.
That’s either a bargain on Manning, or a warning that the surname doesn’t matter to traders the way it matters to broadcasters.
Watch the live board above for moves before fall camp opens. Heisman markets get violent in August once depth charts firm up.
Jason Ziernicki is the founder of CLEATZ, where he analyzes sports betting data, public betting percentages, alt-line trends, and prediction markets across the NFL, NBA, MLB, and college sports.
He is based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he routinely trades on Kalshi each month, hoping to win on weather markets like snowfall, as well as sports and politics.
His work focuses on turning sportsbook data and betting market trends into actionable insights for bettors/traders.
