Andrew Luck should be this year’s sports betting odds favorite to win the Heisman trophy. Just ask the Stanford Cardinal. The school launched a full campaign to lobby for Luck as this year’s winner in what has been termed as an “absolute P.R. blitz” in favor of arguably the most popular player in the nation this season. The campaign included head coach David Shaw conducting a teleconference with the national media in which he was able to give reporters a rare look inside the Cardinal playbook and relay just how well Luck has been able to handle the challenges he has faced this season in regards to his learning and adjustments. While this isn’t the first time that a school has lobbied in favor of one of their player’s winning the award, the circumstances under which Stanford has began its campaign are blatantly obvious.

The favorite to win the Heisman and consensus first overall pick for next year’s NFL draft all year, Luck has lost some of his momentum in recent weeks and is now considered to be in a three-way battle for the honor. The conversation about this year’s Heisman now includes Baylor’s Robert Griffin III and Alabama’s Trent Richardson, both of whom the case can be made deserve the award just as much as Luck does. The pay head bookies that have studied Luck all year will not that he doesn’t even have the best quarterback stats in the country, nor does he play for the best team in the best conference. Just don’t tell that to the Cardinal staff, which are lobbying harder than they have all season for Luck to be awarded the Heisman trophy.