Travis Hunter and Ashton Jeanty give this year's Heisman Trophy ceremony a different vibe

NEW YORK (AP) — Same iconic statue, very different race.

With two-way star Travis Hunter of Colorado and Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty leading the field, these certainly aren't your typical Heisman Trophy contenders.

Sure, veteran quarterbacks Dillon Gabriel from top-ranked Oregon and Cam Ward of No. 15 Miami are finalists for college football's most prestigious award as well, but the 90th annual ceremony coming up Saturday night at Lincoln Center in New York City offers a fresh flavor this year.

To start with, none of the four are from the powerhouse Southeastern Conference, which has produced four of the past five Heisman winners — two each from Alabama and LSU.

Jeanty, who played his home games for a Group of Five team on that peculiar blue turf in Idaho more than 2,100 miles from Manhattan, is the first running back even invited to the Heisman party since 2017. After leading the country with 2,497 yards rushing and 29 touchdowns, he joined quarterback Kellen Moore (2010) as the only Boise State players to be named a finalist.

“The running back position has been overlooked for a while now," said Jeanty, who plans to enter the 2025 NFL draft.

"There's been a lot of great running backs before me that should have been here in New York, so to kind of carry on the legacy of the running back position I think is great. ... I feel as if I'm representing the whole position.”

With the votes already in, all four finalists spent Friday conducting interviews and sightseeing in the Big Apple. They were given custom, commemorative watches to mark their achievement.

“I'm not a watch guy, but I like it,” said Hunter, flashing a smile.

The players also took photos beneath the massive billboards in Times Square and later posed with the famous Heisman Trophy, handed out since 1935 to the nation's most outstanding performer.

Hunter, the heavy favorite, made sure not to touch it yet.

A dominant player on both offense and defense who rarely comes off the field, the wide receiver/cornerback is a throwback to generations gone by and the first full-time, true two-way star in decades.

On offense, he had 92 catches for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns this season to help the 20th-ranked Buffaloes (9-3) earn their first bowl bid in four years. On defense, he made four interceptions, broke up 11 passes and forced a critical fumble that secured an overtime victory against Baylor.

Hunter played 688 defensive snaps and 672 more on offense — the only Power Four conference player with 30-plus snaps on both sides of the ball, according to Colorado research.

Call him college football’s answer to baseball unicorn Shohei Ohtani.

“I think I laid the ground for more people to come in and go two ways,” Hunter said. “It starts with your mindset. If you believe you can do it, then you'll be able to do it. And also, I do a lot of treatment. I keep up with my body. I get a lot of recovery.”

Hunter is Colorado's first Heisman finalist in 30 years. The junior from Suwanee, Georgia, followed flashy coach Deion Sanders from Jackson State, an HBCU that plays in the lower level FCS, to the Rocky Mountains and has already racked up a staggering combination of accolades this week, including The Associated Press player of the year.

Hunter also won the Walter Camp Award as national player of the year, along with the Chuck Bednarik Award as the top defensive player and the Biletnikoff Award for best wide receiver.

“It just goes to show that I did what I had to do,” Hunter said.

Next, he'd like to polish off his impressive hardware collection by becoming the second Heisman Trophy recipient in Buffaloes history, after late running back Rashaan Salaam in 1994.

“I worked so hard for this moment, so securing the Heisman definitely would set my legacy in college football,” Hunter said. “Being here now is like a dream come true.”

Jeanty carried No. 8 Boise State (12-1) to a Mountain West Conference championship that landed the Broncos the third seed in this year's College Football Playoff. They have a first-round bye before facing the SMU-Penn State winner in the Fiesta Bowl quarterfinal on New Year’s Eve.

The 5-foot-9, 215-pound junior from Jacksonville, Florida, won the Maxwell Award as college football’s top player and the Doak Walker Award for best running back. Jeanty has five touchdown runs of at least 70 yards and has rushed for the fourth-most yards in a season in FBS history — topping the total of 115 teams this year. He needs 132 yards to break the FBS record set by Heisman Trophy winner Barry Sanders at Oklahoma State in 1988.

In a pass-happy era, however, Jeanty is trying to become the first running back to win the Heisman Trophy since Derrick Henry for Alabama nine years ago. In fact, quarterbacks have snagged the prize all but four times this century.

Gabriel, an Oklahoma transfer, led Oregon (13-0) to a Big Ten title in its first season in the league and the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff.

The steady senior from Hawaii passed for 3,558 yards and 28 touchdowns with six interceptions. His 73.2% completion rate ranks second in the nation, and he's attempting to join quarterback Marcus Mariota (2014) as Ducks players to win the Heisman Trophy.

“I think all the memories start to roll back in your mind,” Gabriel said.

Ward threw for 4,123 yards and led the nation with a school-record 36 touchdown passes for the high-scoring Hurricanes (10-2) after transferring from Washington State.

The senior from West Columbia, Texas, won the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback of the Year award and is looking to join QBs Vinny Testaverde (1986) and Gino Torretta (1992) as Miami players to go home with the Heisman.

“I just think there's a recklessness that you have to play with at the quarterback position,” Ward said.

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Miami quarterback Cam Ward (1) celebrates after defeating California during an NCAA college football game in Berkeley, Calif., Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Jed Jacobsohn)

Miami quarterback Cam Ward (1) looks for an open receiver during the first half of an NCAA college football game against the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

FILE - Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel (8) looks to pass while playing Purdue during the first half of an NCAA college football game in West Lafayette, Ind., Friday, Oct. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/AJ Mast, File)

FILE - Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty celebrates after winning the offensive player of the game for the Mountain West Championship NCAA college football game against UNLV, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, in Boise, Idaho. (AP Photo/Steve Conner, File)

Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty (2) in the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Laramie, Wyo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Heisman Trophy finalist Travis Hunter, of Colorado, speaks during a college football media availability, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Corey Sipkin)

FILE - Colorado wide receiver Travis Hunter (12) flies in for a touchdown past, from left, Utah linebacker Johnathan Hall, cornerback Smith Snowden and safety Nate Ritchie during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

FILE - Colorado wide receiver Travis Hunter (12) runs after catching a pass during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Central Florida, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)

Heisman Trophy finalist Cam Ward,of Miami, poses with the trophy during a college football media availability, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Corey Sipkin)

Heisman Trophy finalist Dillon Gabriel poses with the trophy during a college football media availability, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Corey Sipkin)

Heisman Trophy finalist Ashton Jeanty, of Boise State, poses with the trophy during a college football media availability, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Corey Sipkin)

Heisman Trophy finalist Travis Hunter, of Colorado, poses with the trophy during a college football media availability, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Corey Sipkin)

Heisman Trophy finalists, from left, Oregon's Dillon Gabriel, Colorado's Travis Hunter, Boise State's Ashton Jeanty and Miami's Cam Ward pose with the trophy during a college football media availability, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Corey Sipkin)

Heisman Trophy finalists, from left, Oregon's Dillon Gabriel, Colorado's Travis Hunter, Boise State's Ashton Jeanty and Miami's Cam Ward pose with the trophy during a college football media availability, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Corey Sipkin)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)