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NEW YORK – Jayden Daniels, a California native who hopped to Arizona and then Louisiana, where he put up astounding stats as LSU's quarterback, won the 89th Heisman Trophy on Saturday night, becoming the youngest winner of this era of college football kinetic player mobility. When he edged out second-place finisher Michael Penix Jr., Washington's quarterback, in the closest vote since 2018, he became the fifth winner in the last seven years to transfer while in college.
“They took a kid from the West Coast and brought me to the bayou,” the smooth 22-year-old said to the LSU coaches in attendance during a speech full of humility and gratitude to everyone, including nutritionists and janitors. His varied path led Daniels to thank the coaches and players at Arizona State, where he spent three seasons, and LSU, where he spent the last two. Later, at the winner's press conference, he emphasized the value of the transfer as “something you have to adapt to” and as “challenging myself to find the life I want and for my future.”
When that future reached the Heisman Trophy, he felt “a sigh of relief,” he said, “kind of like, 'Damn, it's here now,'” after weeks of becoming the betting favorite “just because of the excitement.” will you win it, [or] you are not?' He spoke of “a different feeling I had, [about] everything I’ve worked for in my life, everything I’ve overcome.”
His style of multi-regional moves, routine these days in a sport with a busy transfer portal, ran through the biographies of the four finalists. Penix is a Floridian who played four injury-plagued seasons at Indiana before reaching Seattle, and third-rounder Bo Nix, the quarterback from Oregon, is an Alabamian who played three seasons at Auburn before playing two in Eugene. Only Marvin Harrison Jr., the Ohio State wide receiver who finished fourth in the voting out of 928 voters, hadn't changed schools.
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The vagabonds to reach the Heisman podium in recent years, all quarterbacks, include Caleb Williams (2022), the Washington native who went west to Oklahoma and then farther west to Southern California; Joe Burrow (2019), the Ohioan who went to Ohio State and then LSU; Kyler Murray (2018), the Texan who went to Texas A&M and then Oklahoma; and Baker Mayfield (2017), the Texan who went to Texas Tech and then Oklahoma. In a quarterback era, Daniels became the 20th quarterback to win the Heisman Trophy among the 24 named since 2000. In becoming LSU's second Heisman winner in the last five Decembers, Daniels became third overall, putting the school in a seven-point tie for fourth after spending its first 84 Heisman years behind only Billy Cannon (1959 ) was among the winners.
Daniels' barrage of dual-threat stats this season – a record 208.0 passers, 3,812 passing yards, 1,134 rushing yards, 40 touchdown passes, 10 rushing touchdowns, just four interceptions – attracted another statistic: 503 votes for first place (versus 292 for Penix). ). Penix received more votes for second place (341 to 217) and more votes for third place (143 to 86) until the final score was fairly close to 2,029 to 1,701. And all this despite Penix ultimately winning the bigger prize of the season: He'll take his Huskies (13-0) to the College Football Playoff Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1 in New Orleans against Texas (12-1), while Daniels' No 13 Tigers (9-3) travel to Tampa for the ReliaQuest Bowl against Wisconsin (7-5).
LSU's three losses are among the most for a Heisman-winning team since 2016, when the award went to Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson, who was an inspiration to a young black quarterback watching on TV at the time: Daniels, then 15 .Now it's the same Daniels, only taller, received congratulations onstage from Andre Ware, the 1989 winner, who emphasized the value of having another black quarterback on the team. Jayden Daniels, the son of Javon Daniels and Regina Jackson, joked about how his father originally steered him toward cornerback, a thought long buried, especially in the presence of LSU coach Brian Kelly, a quarterback maestro.
“He was determined,” Kelly said during the ESPN ceremony of Daniels' progress, particularly on deep passes. “He was thoughtful. And he was determined to do this.”
“The word 'perseverance' is this kid, Jayden,” his mother said on the show, soon adding, “It's really hard to describe.”
Daniels hadn't dominated the Heisman chatter earlier in the season. These types of conversations focused more on several others, including the two Pacific Northwest towers, Penix and Nix. The former averaged a national-leading 324.5 yards per game, led his team to comebacks with his moxie and never lost; The latter made a career-high 60 starts, completing an impressive 77.2 percent of his passes and combining 40 touchdown passes with a measly three interceptions while losing just twice, both by three points against Penix's Washington. All the while, Harrison was popping up in Heismans and NFL Draft conversations, appearing superior to even great players, catching 67 passes for 1,211 yards and 14 touchdowns while leading the country in catches against close defenders.
But as the fall progressed, Daniels continued to make progress. He passed for 219 yards and rushed for 163 at Alabama before a hit by linebacker Dallas Turner with 12:54 left resulted in Daniels suffering a concussion and being sidelined. The very next Saturday evening, at home against Florida, he achieved yardage that had never been seen before in the sport's top division: over 350 passes and over 200 runs in the same game, his 372 and 274 totaling 606 yards – from a player. “Towards the end of the season,” Daniels said Saturday night, “it started to pick up even more.” [this] was a real possibility.”
At that point, the Tigers had three losses, so the Daniels Heisman campaign helped enliven a season that might have felt like a vestigial phase. “Certainly when we didn’t have that [College Football Playoff] “After the Alabama game, there’s a chance,” Kelly said, “you start to recalibrate, and certainly one.” [endeavor] “We wanted to get behind the player who we thought was the best player in college football.”
With that in mind, Kelly said the players felt “motivated to do their best.”
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They had thrown their support behind someone they liked, as evidenced by their giving Daniels the most votes in the captaincy election. “A transfer quarterback coming into your program has to win over the locker room,” Kelly said, four years after then-LSU coach Ed Orgeron praised how Burrow came to town and “kept his mouth shut.” Daniels' humility.
This was expressed in response to a question about a doctor who had declared the boy Daniels too small to play football about half of his young life. “I would have to say thank you, of course,” said the 6-foot-3, 220-pound man as he looked out over the country he had crossed, but that thank you didn’t come from the challenging place you’d expect from an athlete grown elite. “She was concerned about my well-being.”