The Heisman Trophy race has whittled down to about four legitimate candidates: Florida QB Tim Tebow, Oregon QB Dennis Dixon, Missouri QB Chase Daniel and Arkansas RB Darren McFadden.

This week's slate of games will help shape the landscape even further, as all four candidates face pretty favorable match-ups.

Tebow takes on Florida Atlantic (97th in scoring defense) in Gainesville, Dixon travels to Arizona (67th scoring defense), Daniel goes to Kansas State (93rd in passing defense) and McFadden stays at home to face a fairly strong Mississippi St. defense, though they do give up 150 yards per game on the ground. All four of these gentleman rank high in numerous statistical categories, as we'll see (numbers after hyphen are national rank).

Tebow
Passing Efficiency: 177.1 - 2nd
Rushing TD: 19 - 3rd
Total Offense: 325.0 yds/gm - 7th
Completion Percentage: 67.8% - 12th
Passing TD: 23 - 16th
Passing Yards: 2532 - 25th

Dixon
Passing Efficiency: 163.1 - 4th
Completion Percentage: 67.9% - 11th
Total Offense: 291.4 - 21st
Passing TD: 20 - 25th
Passing Yards: 2074 - 51st
(Dixon also has 549 yards and 8 TD's rushing)

Daniel
Total Offense: 355.4 yds/gm - 4th
Passing Yards: 3306 - 5th
Completion Percentage: 69.4% - 5th
Passing TD: 26 - 7th
Passing Efficiency: 154.7 - 11th
(Daniel also has 248 yards and 3 TD's rushing)

McFadden
Rushing Yards: 1431 - 4th
Rushing TD: 12 - 19th
Yards Per Carry: 5.9 - 29th
(McFadden has also thrown 2 TD passes

The question is this: do wins and losses matter? Traditionally they have, although the Heisman is strictly for the best player in college football, not necessarily the best on a top five team. Although no sophomore has ever won the award, Tebow clearly does more than any other candidate, but Florida has lost three games, and McFadden's Arkansas team has lost four.

The race will mostly likely come down to how far Oregon and Missouri go. If either team ends up in the national championship game - which seems more likely for Oregon at this point - that will probably be the deciding factor in who wins the trophy.

(Photo: Flickr)