When LSU announced in March of 2022 that dual-threat quarterback Jayden Daniels is signing with the Tigers, who would have thought two years later Daniels would win the Heisman Trophy.
It’s been quite a rise for the San Bernardino, California, native. In his final season at Arizona State, Daniels threw only 10 touchdown passes in 13 games. Last year, a modest increase, 17 touchdowns in 14 games.
The coaching staff pushed Daniels to be more aggressive and a full summer working out with receivers Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas helped produce a 40-passing touchdown season.
Daniels had just 39 passing touchdowns in four years coming into the year.
Coach Brian Kelly says Daniels made an incredible jump because of how he lives his life daily.
“What you do in the classroom and how you handle yourself on a day-to-day basis will have a direct correlation to what you do on the field, and he is that example of how he’s handled himself off the field, how he handles himself in a day-to-day routine has had a direct correlation to how he’s played the game,’ said Kelly.
He’s also handled the attention well. The Heisman buzz never bothered him. He also turned his game up a notch after there were doubts, he could win the Heisman.
After the season opening loss to Florida State, Seminoles quarterback Jordan Travis out played Daniels, so it looked like a Heisman Trophy was not in the cards for Daniels.
But he just kept stacking great performance after great performance to put himself in the thick of the race before the Alabama game.
Daniels gets knocked out of the Bama game and the Tigers lose and once again the Jayden for Heisman campaign lost some steam.
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But Daniels responded with one of the great performances ever by a college football player when he threw for 372 yards and ran for 234 yards in a 52-35 win over Florida.
Despite the three losses, you could no longer ignore the numbers he was putting up and how he was the main reason the Tigers went 9-3 in the regular season.
Daniels will become LSU’s third Heisman Trophy Winner and second since Joe Burrow won it in 2019. Could we expect LSU to start producing Heisman candidates every four or five years? Kelly believes so.
“That’s really powerful when you have two Heisman Trophy winners in such a short period of time, especially at the quarterback position, so I would not minimize the importance of that in the ability to recruit and the ability to retain,” said Kelly.