Kentucky’s Will Levis named Manning Award Quarterback of the Week

Will Levis, a junior from Kentucky, 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. He is the only quarterback to win the honor twice this season.

Manning Award Stars of the Week, November 29, 2021

Levis, who also won this honor in his Kentucky debut week one of the season, completed 14-of-18 passes for 149 yards and rushed for career-highs of 113 yards and four touchdowns as he led the Wildcats to a 52-21 road win over rival Louisville to cap Kentucky’s first nine-win regular season since 2018.

The 6-foot-3, 232-pound native of Madison, Conn., guided UK to seven scores on its first eight possessions, with the only time not scoring being the possession that ended the first half. He left the game with a 45-7 lead. His four touchdowns tied the single-game school records for most rushing TDs and most total TDs. His four TDs also tied the Governor’s Cup record set by former Kentucky standout Lynn Bowden Jr. in 2019.

Following the game, Levis received the Howard Schnellenberger Award as the Most Valuable Player of the Governor’s Cup game. He also earned College Football Performance Awards National Performer of the Week honorable mention.

Levis and the Wildcats finished the regular season 9-3 overall, ending on a three-game win streak and with only one loss at home.

The closest competition for Levis and the Wildcat fans in the Facebook voting contest came from SEC East rival Georgia’s Stetson Bennett and Hawaii’s Chevan Cordeiro. Bennett completed 14-of-20 passes for 255 yards and four touchdowns. He threw for the second-most yards of his career with his 10th 200-yard game as he helped the Bulldogs cap their first undefeated regular season since 1982 with a 45-0 shutout of rival Georgia Tech on the road. Cordeiro, who also ran for 86 yards and a touchdown, became the first Hawaii quarterback to pass for 6,000 yards and run for 1,000 yards in his career. He completed 19-of-31 passes for 323 yards and three touchdowns as he led the Rainbow Warriors to a 31-7 halftime advantage as they defeated Wyoming, 38-14, in a MW road game.

The Manning Award selected 32 quarterbacks for its preseason Watch List and made 15 midseason additions in October. Ten finalists will be selected and the winner is scheduled to be announced following the College Football Playoff National Championship. Since the Manning Award started recognizing Stars of the Week in 2011, 464 different quarterbacks from 129 schools have been recognized. Sixty-seven different quarterbacks were honored this season.

In its first 17 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 (Mac Jones, Joe Burrow, Johnny Manziel, Cam Newton, JaMarcus Russell and Tim Tebow) leads the way with six 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. LSU (Burrow and Russell), Oklahoma (Murray and Mayfield) and Texas (McCoy and Young) have each had 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.