NEW ORLEANS – The Manning Award, sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl, announced 11 finalists for this year’s award on Wednesday. The winner will be announced after the bowls in January and will be honored at a ceremony in New Orleans. The Manning Award was created by the Allstate Sugar Bowl in honor of the college football accomplishments of Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning. It is the only quarterback award that takes the candidates’ bowl performances into consideration in its balloting.
The finalists for this year’s Manning Award are:
J.T. Barrett, Fr., Ohio State
Trevone Boykin, Jr., TCU
Rakeem Cato, Sr., Marshall
Garrett Grayson, Sr., Colorado State
Brett Hundley, Jr., UCLA
Cody Kessler, Jr., USC
Marcus Mariota, Jr., Oregon
Bryce Petty, Sr., Baylor
Dak Prescott, Jr., Mississippi State
Blake Sims, Sr., Alabama
Jameis Winston, So., Florida State
Statistically, the group of finalists excels in nearly every category as they average over 3,000 yards passing and over 28 touchdowns. The group has thrown for more than four touchdowns for every interception they have lost. In addition, five of the finalists ran for over 500 yards on the year with seven of them tallying five or more rushing touchdowns. Eight of the 11 also led their teams to double digits in victories; and that’s with seven of them still in action this weekend; five of this year’s Manning Award finalists will be competing in conference championship games.
“We are very excited about our group of 11 finalists this year,” said Archie Manning. “Some of these guys were expected to be stars coming into the season and some of them made names for themselves throughout the year, but all 11 of these quarterbacks proved themselves to be winners and leaders. We really appreciate the work of our selection committee in choosing these 11 from a group of very deserving candidates. I’m looking forward to the conference championships and bowl games to see who steps up on the big stage.”
This year’s group includes three returning finalists from last year (Mariota, Petty and Winston) – Mariota was also a finalist in 2012. The list is dominated by upperclassmen with four seniors and five juniors, and just one sophomore and one freshman. The finalists come from six different conferences, including the Pac-12 with three, two each from the SEC and the Big 12, and one each from the ACC, the Big Ten, Conference USA and the Mountain West.
In its first 11 years, the Manning Award has recognized the top names in college football. It has honored quarterbacks from 10 different schools and from four different conferences. While the Southeastern Conference leads the way with four Manning Award winners (JaMarcus Russell, Tim Tebow, Cam Newton, Johnny Manziel), Texas is the only school with two winners (Vince Young and Colt McCoy).
Statistically, the Manning Award has seen a wide-range of quarterbacks. Seven of the Manning Award men threw for over 3,000 yards in their winning campaign, including 4,000-yard seasons from Jameis Winston, Robert Griffin, III, and Matt Ryan, who connected for over 4,500 yards during the 2007 season. On the other hand, Young, Manziel and Newton were both 1,000-yard rushers during their Manning years.
Perhaps most impressive among the statistics of the quarterbacks recognized by the Manning Award is touchdowns scored. Five of the winners accounted for over 40 touchdowns during their successful seasons, including 51 scores from Newton, who threw for 30 touchdowns, ran for 20 more and added a receiving TD.
One of the more unique aspects of the Manning Award is the fact that it takes into account the quarterbacks bowl performances, in addition to the regular season. Ten of the 11 Manning Award winners won bowl games during the season they won the honor; the lone loss was McCoy’s in the 2010 BCS Championship game when he suffered an early injury. In addition to McCoy, five other Manning honorees (Matt Leinart, Young, Tebow, Newton and Winston) led their team to the BCS Championship game – all five emerged victorious.
Manning Award winners have also factored prominently in the NFL Draft as they all heard their names called on Draft Day (other than Winston, who will likely be a top pick in a future draft). Two honorees were selected No. 1 overall (Russell and Newton), while three others went No. 2 or No. 3 (Young, Ryan and Griffin).
All of the Manning Award winners follow in the footsteps of the Mannings themselves. In college, Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning combined for over 25,000 passing yards and 201 touchdowns while playing in 10 bowl games and earning four bowl MVP awards. Archie was the No. 2 pick in the NFL Draft, while both Peyton and Eli were selected No. 1 overall.
In addition to the Manning Award’s yearly honor, each week during the regular season, eight quarterbacks are recognized as Manning Quarterbacks of the Week. Sixty-two players from 58 different schools were honored during the 2014 season.