ECU’s Holton Ahlers earns Manning Award Quarterback of the Week

NEW ORLEANS (October 27, 2022) – Holton Ahlers, a senior at East Carolina University, has been selected as the Manning Award Quarterback of the Week. He earns the honor over seven other Manning Award Stars of the Week in the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Facebook contest.

Facebook Voting

Ahlers, the Pirates starting QB for the fourth consecutive year, became the school’s all-time leader in touchdown passes with 87 via a 39-yard strike to C.J. Johnson in the second quarter. He led the Pirates to an early 17-0 advantage on their way to the key AAC victory over UCF with a final score of 34-13. He completed 30-of-36 passes for 311 yards with one touchdown through the air and one on the ground.

The Greenville, N.C., native produced the 17th 300-yard passing game of his career, third in 2022, and turned in the third-highest single-game completion percentage of his career at 83 percent. He has thrown at least one TD pass in 39 of 50 career games.

The Pirates will head to BYU on Friday for a non-conference matchup at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN2.

Ahlers’ closest competition in this week’s Facebook voting contest came from LSU’s Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix of Oregon. Daniels completed 21-of-28 passes for 248 yards and two touchdowns, while also rushing for 121 yards and three touchdowns, as the Tigers rallied from an early 17-3 deficit to blow out No. 7 Ole Miss, 45-20, in an SEC home game. Nix completed 22-of-28 passes for 283 yards with five touchdowns and ran for 51 yards. This was his second five-touchdown game of the season as the Ducks pulled away from No. 9 UCLA in a 45-30 Pac-12 victory that extended their home-winning streak to a school-record 23 games.

While the Manning Award selected 30 quarterbacks for its preseason Watch List, additional quarterbacks will be added to the Watch List this week. Ten finalists will be selected, and the winner is scheduled to be announced following the College Football Playoff National Championship.

In its first 18 years, the Manning Award has recognized the top names in college football. It has honored quarterbacks from 13 different schools and from four different conferences. The Southeastern Conference (Bryce Young, Joe Burrow, Mac Jones, Johnny Manziel, Cam Newton, JaMarcus Russell and Tim Tebow) leads the way with seven Manning Award honorees, while the Big 12 Conference (Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, Vince Young, Colt McCoy and Robert Griffin III) has had five winners. The Atlantic Coast Conference (Deshaun Watson twice, Matt Ryan and Jameis Winston) has had four Manning Award winners. Alabama (B. Young and Jones) joins LSU (Burrow and Russell), Oklahoma (Murray and Mayfield) and Texas (McCoy and V. Young) as the only schools with two different winners.

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.