Heisman finalists are an ode to portal/NIL era
Three transfer QBs part of group
NEW YORK — This year’s Heisman Trophy ceremony will be an ode to the new era of college sports, transformed by the transfer portal and NIL.
Three of the four Heisman finalists are quarterbacks who blossomed into stars at their second schools and were having so much fun in college that they decided to stick around an extra year — or two.
“It’s different for everybody. It depends on how they want their life to go,” LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels said Friday. “We decided to transfer, and to start fresh, and to stay an extra year because we felt like we had something more to prove.”
Whether it is Daniels, Oregon’s Bo Nix or Washington’s Michael Penix Jr., the Heisman Trophy winner is likely to be a transfer quarterback for the fifth time in the last seven years.
The 89th Heisman will be handed out Saturday night in midtown Manhattan. Those three quarterbacks and Ohio State receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. are the finalists. Daniels is the favorite to take home the big
College football spotlight
bronze statue.
The four spent Friday in New York City, sightseeing, talking to reporters, posing for photos with the trophy and, for the three quarterbacks, making an appearance at a fast-food chicken joint on Times Square.
Daniels, Nix and Penix Jr. have taken more circuitous routes to the top of the college football.
Nix was a five-star recruit and freshman starter at Auburn.
A Tigers legacy whose father was also an Auburn quarterback, Nix spent three years on The Plains. He had some high highs and low lows and decided after 2021 to try something else. The Ducks contended for a playoff spot last year and with a chance to make another championship run, Nix came back for a fifth college season — taking advantage of the extra year of eligibility the NCAA gave out to those who were in school during the 2020-21 pandemic. The 23-year-old threw 40 touchdown passes this season and is threatening the FBS record for completion percentage in a season at 77.2%.
Penix, 23, is in his sixth year. He spent four injuryplagued years at Indiana before transferring to Washington in 2022 to play for Huskies coach Kalen DeBoer, who had been offensive coordinator with the Hoosiers. Penix leads the nation at 324 yards passing per game and beat Oregon and Nix twice this season, guiding the second- ranked Huskies to a Pac-12 title and College Football Playoff appearance.
Daniels, who turns 23 Dec. 18, took the opposite path from Nix, going from the Pac-12 to the Southeastern Conference. He played three seasons at Arizona State before transferring to LSU last year. He, too, took advantage of the chance to play another college season and it all came together. He leads the nation in total offense at 412 yards per game and is averaging an astounding 10.7 yards per play. Daniels has a chance to become the rare Heisman winner in the BCS/CFP era to play for a team that wasn’t a national title contender late in the season. The 13th- ranked Tigers went 9-3.