Allstate Sugar Bowl announces 11 Manning Award finalists

Eleven Quarterbacks Will Vie for Annual Honor Through Bowl Season

NEW ORLEANS – The Manning Award, sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl, announced 11 finalists for this year’s award on Thursday. 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:
Ian Book, Jr., Notre Dame
Jake Fromm, So., Georgia
Will Grier, Sr., West Virginia
Dwayne Haskins, So., Ohio State
D’Eriq King, Jr., Houston
Trevor Lawrence, Fr., Clemson
Drew Lock, Sr., Missouri
McKenzie Milton, Jr., UCF
Gardner Minshew, Sr., Washington State
Kyler Murray, Jr., Oklahoma
Tua Tagovailoa, So., Alabama

“College football has a truly impressive group of quarterbacks this year,” said Archie Manning. “It was very challenging to sit down and only select 11 for this honor and I want to give my thanks to our group of voters for taking the time to come up with an excellent group of finalists. Now we can all look forward to the postseason games to see which quarterback steps up and proves himself to be the best for the full season.”

Statistically, the group of finalists excels in nearly every category as they average over 3,000 yards passing while accounting for a total of 399 touchdowns. The group has thrown more than five times as many touchdown passes as interceptions. In addition, five of the finalists ran for five or more rushing touchdowns. Eight of the 11 led their teams to double digits in victories, while all 11 have led their teams to bowl eligibility. Six of this year’s Manning Award finalists directed their programs to conference championship games this weekend.

The list includes four juniors as well as three seniors, three sophomores and one freshman. The finalists are distributed between six different conferences: the SEC leads the way with three selections while the AAC and Big 12 have two each and the ACC, Big Ten, Pac 12 and the Independents have one.

In its first 14 years, the Manning Award has recognized the top names in college football. It has honored quarterbacks from 12 different schools and from four different conferences. The Big 12 Conference (Baker Mayfield, Vince Young, Colt McCoy and Robert Griffin III) joins the Southeastern Conference (Johnny Manziel, Cam Newton, JaMarcus Russell and Tim Tebow) and the Atlantic Coast Conference (Deshaun Watson twice, Matt Ryan and Jameis Winston) with four Manning Award wins each, while Texas is the only school with two different winners (McCoy and Young).

All 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 Stars of the Week. Sixty players from 59 different schools were honored during the 2018 season and 331 quarterbacks from 127 schools have been honored since 2011.