PHILADELPHIA–LSU senior quarterback Jayden Daniels has been awarded the Heisman Trophy as the best football player in the country.
The 23-year-old fifth year senior dual threat from San Bernadino, Calif. started his career at Arizona State, but transferred to Baton Rouge after three years in 2022, where he blossomed in the SEC.
Daniels was the first player since 2016 to win the award as part of a team that did not play for a conference championship. But he put up numbers that were too good to be overlooked, fueling the best offense in the country with his passing (3,812 yards) and running (1,134) and scoring 50 touchdowns for a 9-3 team during a 12-game regular season. He led the country in total offense at 412 yards per game and averaging an eye popping 10.71 yards per play.
Daniels won the Heisman, beating out two other transfers– Mike Penix II of Washington, who started his career at Indiana and Bo Nix of Oregon, who migrated west from Auburn– who finished second and third in the balloting.
“It’s different for everybody,” Daniels said. “It depends on how they want their life go to. We decided to transfer, and to start fresh, and to stay an extra year because we felt like we had something more to prove.”
The trend of quarterbacks switching schools started long before the transfer portal opened in 2021.
Daniels is the fifth quarterback in the last seven years to win this award as a transfer. Kyler Murray of Oklahoma, who started at Texas A & M, won in 2018 and Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma, a transfer from Texas Tech, won in 2017. Joe Burrow of LSU won in 2018 after transferring from Ohio State for his senior year. USC Caleb Williams, a transfer from Oklahoma, won in 2022 as a sophomore.
It is interesting to note that only two of the top 10 ranked quarterbacks this season– JJ McCarthy of Michigan and Drake Maye– stayed at the school that initially signed them. And the list of quarterbacks in the portal this year is constantly expanding with productive Dillion Gabriel of Oklahoma already announcing for Oregon, Riley Leonard transferring to Notre Dame and talents like Kyle McCord of Ohio State, Cam Ward of Washington State and Dante Moore of UCLA and Grayson McCall of Coastal Carolina all mulling elite Power 5 offers.
Quarterback is the most influential position in college football– and the most expensive. Nebraska coach Mike Rhule recently said a good Power 5 quarterback in the portal could cost a school anywhere from $1 to $2 million dollars. “There’s some teams that have $6 or $7 million players playing for them,” he claimed.
All three Heisman finalists have spent multiple years at their second schools.
The 23-year-old Nix was a five-star prospect and freshman starter at Auburn, where his father also played. He spent three years on the Plains, experiencing highs and lows in the SEC before moving on. He came back to college for a fifth year of eligibility the NCAA gave out to those who were in school during the Covid pandemic. Nix
threw for 40 touchdown passes and completed 77 percent of his passes for the Ducks, who finished 11-2 after a loss to unbeaten Washington in the Pac-12 title game at Vegas.
Penix, 23, is in his sixth year. He spent four years in an injury plagued career at Indiana before starting over at Washington, where the coach Kalen DeBoer used to be the offensive coordinator with the Big Ten Hoosiers.
“He’s definitely the biggest factor into me transferring to Washington. It’s just having that trust out there on the field and just knowing that every time I snap the ball, I have opportunity to do something great with it,” Penix said to AP. “You know that feeling is something that you can’t match.”
Pennix leads the nation with 324 years passing per game and beat Oregon and Nix twice this season, leading the second-ranked Huskies to the Pac-12 title, a 13-0 record and a spot in the College Football semi-finals against Texas.
Daniels has been at LSU for two years. Even though his led the Tigers to an SEC West title, his first year was good, but inconsistent. But his numbers have been off the charts this season and he leads the country in total offense with 412 yards per game. “Going from the West Coast to the Bayou, I didn’t know what I was getting into,” he said. “But I’m glad chose that path.”.4
Daniels highlighted his journey with a 382- yard, three touchdown performance against Alabama in November during in a playoff eliminating loss that ended with him leaving the game after three quarters following a hard hit that put him in concussion protocol.
But he put an exclamation mark on a special year when he became the first major college player with at least 350 years passing and 200 yards rushing when he rang up 606 yards total offense during a big win over Florida.
