Washington State’s Anthony Gordon earns Manning Award Quarterback of the Week

Anthony Gordon, a senior from Washington State University, has been selected as the Manning Award Quarterback of the Week for the fourth week of the season. He earns the win over seven other Manning Award Stars of the Week in the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Facebook contest. Gordon also won the honor for the opening week of the season, making him this year’s first two-time winner.

Gordon set a career-best in passing yards and broke the school-record for touchdown passes but it wasn’t enough for the Cougars who lost a wild 67-63 decision to UCLA in Pac-12 action. He completed 41-of-61 passes for 570 yards and nine touchdowns.

The Pacifica, Calif., native leads the country in passing touchdowns with 21, passing yards at 1,894 and passing yards per game at 473.5. His nine touchdowns last week set the single-game record for Washington State as well as the Pac-12.

Washington State heads to No. 19 Utah for a Saturday night showdown on Fox Sports 1 at 6:05 p.m. CT. The Cougars lead the country in passing (499.5), rank 2nd in total offense (605.2) and 5th in scoring (52.8).

Gordon’s top competitors this week were Colorado’s Steven Montez and Josh Love of San José State. Montez tallied his school-record 12th career 300-yard game as he helped the Buffaloes to a 34-31 Pac-12 road upset of No. 24 Arizona State. Love notched his second career 400-yard game as he led the Spartans to a 31-24 win over Arkansas – their first win over a power conference team since 2006.

While the Manning Award selected 30 quarterbacks for its preseason Watch List, additional quarterbacks are expected to be added to the Watch List later in the season. The 10 finalists for the honor will be announced on Thursday, November 28 and the winner is scheduled to be announced following the College Football Playoff National Championship.

In its first 15 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 (Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, Vince Young, Colt McCoy and Robert Griffin III) leads the way with five Manning Award honorees, while 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) have four Manning Award winners each. Oklahoma (Murray and Mayfield) joins Texas (McCoy and 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.

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 players from 59 different schools were honored during the 2018 season.