Michigan has more wins than any program in college football and has produced 145 first team All Americans. It has won the Heisman Trophy three times. That is fewer than USC, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Alabama, and it is the number that surprises people most about the program.
| Year | Player | Position | The season |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1940 | Tom Harmon | Halfback | Led the nation in scoring for a second straight year |
| 1991 | Desmond Howard | Wide receiver | 23 total touchdowns, 19 of them receiving |
| 1997 | Charles Woodson | Cornerback | First primarily defensive player to win |
Tom Harmon, 1940
Harmon led the country in scoring in both 1939 and 1940, a feat nobody has repeated. He finished second in the Heisman voting in 1939 behind Iowa’s Nile Kinnick, then won it the following year as the sixth recipient in the award’s history.
His final college game was the one everyone remembers. Against Ohio State in Columbus, Harmon ran for three touchdowns, threw for two more, kicked four extra points, intercepted three passes and punted three times for a 50 yard average in a 40 to 0 win. The Ohio State crowd gave him a standing ovation as he left the field, which has not happened to a Michigan player before or since.
Harmon scored 33 touchdowns and 237 points in his career. His No. 98 was retired, he enlisted in the Army in 1941 and survived two plane crashes during the war, then played two NFL seasons and spent decades as a broadcaster.
Desmond Howard, 1991
Howard caught 61 passes for 950 yards and 19 touchdowns, the receiving touchdowns a program record that led the nation. He added two rushing scores and a touchdown return on both a punt and a kickoff for 23 total, and set or tied five NCAA records along the way.
The moment that made the season was the punt return against Ohio State in the regular season finale. Howard took it back for a touchdown and, in the end zone, struck the Heisman pose. It remains the most famous image of the award being claimed in advance.
He won by what was then the second largest margin in Heisman history, and was only the third wide receiver to win it. Washington took him fourth overall in the 1992 draft, he was the MVP of Super Bowl XXXI with Green Bay, and he has spent the years since on the set of College GameDay.
Charles Woodson, 1997
Woodson was the first primarily defensive player to win the Heisman, and until Travis Hunter in 2024 he was the only one. He beat Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning for the award, which remains among the most debated results in Heisman history, and Michigan won the national championship the same season.
He was a cornerback who also played receiver and returned punts, and the Heisman Trust describes him as the only winner to play significant minutes on both sides of the ball since the sport moved to two platoon football in the early 1960s. He came from Fremont, Ohio, turned down Ohio State, and won a starting job two weeks into his first training camp.
Our Michigan national championships page covers the 1997 title season.
The Nine Who Came Close
| Finish | Players |
|---|---|
| Second | Tom Harmon (1939), Bob Chappuis (1947), Aidan Hutchinson (2021) |
| Third | Rob Lytle (1976), Rick Leach (1978), Jim Harbaugh (1986) |
| Fourth | Bob Timberlake (1964), Anthony Carter (1982), Chris Perry (2003) |
Michigan players have finished in the top 12 of the voting 29 times. Anthony Carter placed in the top ten in three consecutive seasons, and Harmon, Ron Kramer and Rick Leach each did it twice. Jabrill Peppers was a finalist in 2016 without cracking the top four.
Hutchinson’s second place finish in 2021, on the strength of a school record 14 sacks, was the closest a Wolverine had come since Woodson.
Why Only Three
The program’s identity explains most of it. Michigan under Fielding Yost, Fritz Crisler and Bo Schembechler was built on balance, depth and a run heavy offence that spread carries across multiple backs. Heisman voting rewards individual volume, and for decades Michigan’s system did not produce it.
The three winners are also three different kinds of player. Harmon was a single wing tailback who did everything. Howard was a receiver and returner in an era when the award was almost never given to one. Woodson was a defender, which had never happened at all. None of them fit the mould, which is partly why they stood out enough to win.
Our Heisman winners by year page has every recipient since 1995 and the records that define the award.
The Bottom Line
Michigan’s three Heisman winners are Tom Harmon in 1940, Desmond Howard in 1991 and Charles Woodson in 1997. Nine more Wolverines have finished in the top four, including three runners up. For the winningest program in the sport, three is a low total, and the reason is a century of offences designed to share the ball rather than feature one player.