LSU Quarterback Jayden Daniels Wins AP Player of the Year

BATON ROUGE, La. (KPEL News) - The excellent postseason continues for LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels, who has been racking up the accolades since the regular season ended.

On Thursday morning, Daniels was named the 2023 AP Player of the Year.

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Via the AP:

Daniels received 35 of the 51 first-place votes and 130 total points from AP Top 25 poll voters. The Heisman Trophy finalist finished comfortably ahead of Washington quarterback Michael Penix, who was second with 15 first-place votes and 97 points.

Oregon QB Bo Nix was third, with Ohio State receiver Marvin Harrison fourth and Oklahoma State running back Ollie Gordon II fifth. Nix received the other first-place vote. USC quarterback Caleb Williams, the 2022 AP Player of the Year and last year’s Heisman winner, did not receive votes this season.

It's a solid win for Daniels, who is still one of the favorites to win the Heisman trophy. That award will be given on Saturday to either Daniels, Penix, Nix, or Harrison.

Daniels finished off the regular season with a total of 3,812 passing yards in ten games, averaging 11.7 yards per throw and 40 touchdowns. Along the way, the quarterback has broken some key records, including an FBS record when he picked up 606 total yards and five touchdowns.

He also won the AP SEC Offensive Player of the Year Award, winning the award unanimously, according to Koki Riley of the USA Today Network. Last week, Daniels was named a finalist for the Manning, Davey O’Brien, Maxwell, and Walter Camp Awards, as well.

Will He Win the Heisman?

The last LSU player to be named AP Player of the Year was Joe Burrow in 2019, when he also won the Heisman, LSU noted in a press release. They also noted that the winner of the AP award "has differed from the Heisman winner just twice in the past two decades."

One of those times was in 2015, when the Heisman winner was Derrick Henry of Alabama while the AP Player of the Year was Christian McCaffrey of Stanford. The other was in 2009, when Mark Ingram of Alabama won the Heisman while Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska was the AP Player of the Year.

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