Washington State’s Gardner Minshew earns second Manning Award Quarterback of the Week honor

Gardner Minshew, a senior from Washington State, has been selected as the Manning Award Quarterback of the Week. He earns the win over seven other Manning Award Stars of the Week in the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Facebook contest.

Facebook Voting

Minshew, the first repeat winner of the season, completed 40-of-50 passes for 438 yards and three touchdowns, marking his fifth 400-yard game of the year, as he directed the Cougars to the game-winning field goal with 19 seconds to go in a 41-38 Pac-12 road win over No. 24 Stanford.

”We want the ball to come to us,” Minshew said. ”We want to have the chance to make the play to win the game. … We knew if we got the chance, we could win it for us.”

The Brandon, Miss., native has led the Cougars to a 7-1 record and a No. 8 College Football Playoff ranking while leading the nation in passing yards (3,183), passing yards-per-game (397.9) and total offense-per-game (403.9).

Minshew is a graduate transfer who played the past two seasons at East Carolina. He was also selected as a Manning Award Star of the Week last year while playing for the Pirates. The No. 8 Cougars host California Saturday night at 9:45 p.m. CT on ESPN.

Minshew’s top competitors were Eric Dungey of Syracuse and Oregon State’s Jake Luton. Dungey recorded his third career 400-yard game, while also rushing for a touchdown, as he led his team to a 51-41 ACC victory over No. 22 NC State to launch the Orange into the AP Top-25 for the first time since 2001. Luton, who only played after halftime, set career-highs in nearly every category and tossed a 10-yard TD strike with 29 seconds to go in regulation, forcing overtime as the Beavers erased a 28-point second-half deficit for a 41-34 road win over Colorado, their first Pac-12 win of the season.

Manning Award

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 winners 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.