Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Official Athletics Website

Book Named to Manning Award Watch List

NOTRE DAME, Indiana — University of Notre Dame graduate student quarterback Ian Book has been selected to the 2020 Manning Award Watch List. 

Prior to the 2004 college football season, the Manning Award was created by the Allstate Sugar Bowl in honor of the college football accomplishments of Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning. It is the only college football quarterback award that includes the candidates’ bowl performances in its balloting; therefore, it is presented annually following the completion of the bowl season.

A 2019 team captain and Notre Dame Offensive Player of the Year, Book was named to the Davey O’Brien Award Great 8 List three times and the Manning Star of the Week twice last season. He finished the season 240-for-399 with 3,034 yards and 34 touchdowns, throwing just six interceptions. He also ran 112 times for 546 yards and four touchdowns. 

With his 2019 performance, Book became the first quarterback in Notre Dame history with at least 2,500 passing yards, 500 rushing yards and 30 TD passes in a season. Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts was the only other FBS quarterback to reach those milestones in 2019. 

He had five games on the year with four or more passing TDs, the most in a Notre Dame football season, and was the first Irish quarterback ever to have multiple games with five touchdown passes in the same season (vs. New Mexico, Bowling Green and Navy in 2019) — not to mention becoming the first quarterback in Irish history to throw five touchdown passes in a singular half vs. Bowling Green. 

ABOUT THE MANNING AWARD

In addition to the Manning Award’s yearly honor, each week during the regular season, eight quarterbacks are recognized as Manning Quarterbacks of the Week. Seventy-one players from 65 different schools were honored during the 2019 season and 377 different quarterbacks from 127 schools have been recognized since 2011.

In its first 16 years, the Manning Award has recognized the top names in college football. It has honored quarterbacks from 12 different schools and from four different conferences. The Big 12 Conference (Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, Vince Young, Colt McCoy and Robert Griffin III) and the Southeastern Conference (Burrow, Johnny Manziel, Cam Newton, JaMarcus Russell and Tim Tebow) lead the way with five Manning Award honorees each, while and the Atlantic Coast Conference (Deshaun Watson twice, Matt Ryan and Jameis Winston) has had four Manning Award winners. LSU (Burrow and Russell) joins Oklahoma (Murray and Mayfield) and Texas (McCoy and Young) as the only schools with two different winners.

Following is the complete 2020 preseason watch list calendar:

Monday July 13: Chuck Bednarik Award (Kyle Hamilton, Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah)

Tuesday July 14: Davey O’Brien Award (Ian Book)

Monday July 20: Butkus Award (Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah)

Tuesday July 21: Outland Trophy (Aaron Banks, Liam Eichenberg, Jarrett Patterson)

Tuesday, July 21: Nagurski Award (Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Drew White)

Wednesday July 22: Groza Award (Jonathan Doerer)

Thursday July 23: Wuerffel Trophy (Daelin Hayes)

Friday July 24: Maxwell Award (Ian Book)

Thursday July 30: Manning Award (Ian Book)