Lamar Jackson was even better in 2017 than in his 2016 Heisman year

Take a look at what he had to work with, and it’s clear he’s a totally deserving finalist.

Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield has been incredible in 2017. Of that, there is no doubt. He should win the Heisman Trophy by a large margin on Saturday evening, and it’s hard to argue too much with that.

Defending Heisman winner Lamar Jackson, meanwhile, will finish either second or third. When you fall a spot or two, it leaves the impression that you weren’t as good.

Don’t think, for even one second, that Jackson was a disappointment, however.

I’m not sure we’ve ever taken a defending Heisman winner more for granted than we have with No. 8 this year.

He was barely garnering mention in our own weekly Heisman pieces, which was largely based on betting odds, and he fell out of the odds at Bovada for a while.

Because of how we tend to look at college football, this makes sense.

For one thing, Oklahoma’s Mayfield was absolutely incredible.

More importantly, Louisville disappointed, suffering three double-digit losses on the way to a 5-4 start. Because the Heisman is more of a popularity contest than anything else, we hold that against you, whether it’s your fault or not.

Still, virtually none of Louisville’s problems were Jackson's fault.

After losing defensive coordinator Todd Grantham to Mississippi State and replacing him with Peter Sirmon, the defense fell from 19th to 88th in Def. S&P+; the Cardinals allowed nearly one more yard per play in 2017, and they allowed at least 39 points in all four losses.

The offense? It improved from 10th to fifth in Off. S&P+ despite Jackson losing his top three receivers and three starting linemen and lining up next to a QB-turned-WR-turned-RB (Reggie Bonnafon) in the backfield.

He has lower interception and sack rates and a higher completion rate, and he’s probably going to rush for more than 1,600 yards again after the bowl.

In the offseason, Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino made a point of making Jackson more of a pro-style quarterback, whatever that means. We were all a hair worried that it would neuter the electric quarterback.

It hasn’t. Jackson has sacrificed a little bit of rushing and gotten definitively better through the air.

Again, he’s doing this on a team with a new receiving corps and, because of the horrid defense, a lot more scoring deficits.

The guy won the Heisman and then improved.

And we nearly forgot about him.

But after collapsing late in 2016, the Cardinals surged late in 2017, winning their last three games by an average of 30 points and earning Jackson a return trip to New York.