Tag: pac-12 quarterbacks

Pac-12 has a chance to dominate the 2023 Heisman Trophy ceremony

If you were to set the over-under on #Pac12 #Heisman finalists for 2023, would it be 2.5? That’s hardly a ridiculous number.

The Pac-12 Conference might be dying, but it could really go out in style this year. One reason the Pac-12 could have a banner year is that there are so many Heisman Trophy candidates in play for the conference. It’s only one week, but if you look around the larger landscape of college football, you will see that there are several legitimate contenders for the award. If they all play really well, it will be hard for Heisman contenders from other conferences to emerge and displace them.

Of course it’s only one week, and of course USC and Oregon played cupcake opponents this past weekend, but Pac-12 players, particularly quarterbacks, are certainly in position to have big years and make Heisman statements.

Let’s go through the main Pac-12 Heisman contenders and mention a few other national Heisman candidates who might get in their way in New York City this December:

The biggest questions facing Caleb Williams and every other Pac-12 QB

What is the most crucial and defining question each #Pac12 QB must answer with conviction this season? Let’s explore this topic.

At College Sports Wire, Patrick Conn offered his post-spring Pac-12 quarterback rankings, which are definitely worth your time. Patrick follows the sport very closely and is deeply informed about each and every conference. You can debate his rankings — though Caleb Williams being No. 1 is not one of them — but the larger point is that Patrick brings statistics and receipts to back up his claims. Those rankings offer a good lead-in to what we’re going to explore here.

Every quarterback, every athlete, faces questions heading into a new season. Plenty are valid and relevant, but one question stands above all others. Every athlete knows where he needs to improve. Every athlete knows the problem he must solve in order to rise to a higher level of excellence. In that vein, we present the most central questions facing each of the Pac-12’s projected starting quarterbacks for 2023:

Will the Heisman Trophy land in the Pac-12 for a second-straight year in 2023?

Will the Heisman Trophy stay in the Pac-12 in 2023? With all of the QBs out west, it’s a fair bet.

A narrative that has been building over the last decade or so is that it’s become harder for players on the west coast — particularly in the Pac-12 conference — to win the Heisman Trophy due to east-coast bias. The notion that many Heisman voters are from either the mid-west or on the east coast makes it so, often times, much of the country is asleep by the time Pac-12 players are on the field in the late-night window.

We saw this impact guys like LaMichael James, Andrew Luck, Bryce Love, and most notably Christian McCaffrey. However, every now and again you will get a player that is so transcendent out west that he can overcome the east-coast bias. We saw it almost a decade ago with Oregon Ducks’ QB Marcus Mariota winning the award, and it happened once again this past season with USC Trojans’ QB Caleb Williams taking down the prestigious trophy.

It’s starting to look like the Heisman Trophy could be staying out west once again in the 2023 season.

With guys like Williams, Bo Nix, Michael Penix, Cam Rising, DJ Uiagalelei, and Cam Ward all lining up to play in the Pac-12 this season, there’s a good possibility that at least a handful of those guys are in the running to make it to New York for the awards ceremony at the start of December. Last season, we saw Nix among the top contenders before an injury derailed his campaign, and both Penix and Rising flirted with contention as well.

When making predictions for the 2023 season, 247Sports recently stated the case that it will be a Pac-12 QB who is named Heisman winner this year:

Get your popcorn ready for the Pac-12’s jam-packed October, a month that is filled with quality games pitting top 15-caliber competition throughout. I would expect Oregon and Washington to both go into their Seattle showdown with matching unbeaten records and College GameDay in town. It’ll mark a midseason look at two potential Heisman frontrunners as well between Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. When it was all said and done last season, the Pac-12 was college football’s most competitive Power Five league at the top of the standings and that may not change in 2023 given the talent returning at quarterback for the conference’s title contenders. USC’s Caleb Williams, Nix or Penix will be the last man standing in New York.

Of course, it’s not a sure thing that Oregon, Washington, USC, and Utah are all going to be ranked among the top teams in the nation come season’s end, but with how the rosters are shaping up, it’s not a bad bet to make. If any of those team can make it to the College Football Playoff, there’s a good chance that the QB of that team will be a Heisman candidate.

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Ranking the Pac-12 QBs through Week 8: Bo Nix is finally getting respect from PFF

It took eight weeks, but Oregon’s Bo Nix’s ranking is finally shooting toward the top of the Pac-12 QB rankings, according to PFF.

The two top quarterbacks in the Pac-12, at least according to PFF, had a bye week, so the No. 3 spot was up for grabs.

Oregon quarterback Bo Nix has been vastly underrated in these rankings and we wondered what did he have to do in order to move up. We might have found out as Nix torched then No. 10 UCLA for five touchdowns, propelling him up the rankings at long last.

In other quarterback news, Colorado keeps changing signal callers and it didn’t work out in Corvallis. And speaking of Corvallis, there might be a Wally Pip/Lou Gehrig situation going on in the Beaver program as backup Ben Gulbranson is doing everything he can to remove that backup title and become the permanent starter.

This coming week should be interesting as the top two quarterbacks have dangerous road games up ahead, including a Thursday night game in very hostile territory.

Here’s how Pro Football Focus ranks the quarterbacks in the Pac-12 after week 8: