Why it's a joke that Caleb Williams didn't win the Davey O'Brien Award
By Evan Desai
Last week, just a couple of days before Caleb Williams won the Heisman Trophy, a hilarious joke ran throughout the college football world. The joke was that TCU QB Max Duggan won the Davey O'Brien Award over Williams.
The Davey O'Brien Award goes to the nation's best quarterback, and despite Williams being named Player of the Year by Walter Camp, CBS Sports, AP, and the Maxwell Award--the Davey O'Brien selectors apparently thought they knew better. To make it even funnier, again, Williams won the Heisman Trophy two days later and the vote wasn't even close.
But wait! Duggan improved the Horned Frogs seven wins this season! Well, Williams did the same for the Trojans, so that explanation certainly won't cut it. Williams also did it at a new program that he transferred to this offseason. Adjusting to a completely different program isn't easy, but Williams made the adjustment perfectly.
Caleb Williams also had significantly better stats than Duggan.
Caleb Williams completed 66.1% of his passes this year. Duggan completed just 64.9% of his passes this year. That means that Duggan not only didn't crack the Top 25 nationally like Williams (tied for 23rd), but he didn't even crack the Top 30. Williams also threw for 4,075 passing yards. Duggan wasn't even in the same stratosphere, at 3,321 passing yards. What are the selectors even doing?
Williams didn't have more passing yards because he attempted more passes, as he had a higher yard per attempt rate than Duggan. Williams' 9.1 was higher than Duggan's 9. In fact, Williams' adjusted yards per pass attempt number (10.3) was higher than Duggan's 10.2.
And sure, Duggan only threw four interceptions, just like Williams did. But did Duggan throw 37 passing touchdowns? No, and not even close to. He had 30 to Williams' 37, and his six rushing touchdowns was nowhere close to Williams' 10 either. Duggan did have 32 more rushing yards than Williams' 372, but that's all Duggan had going for him when going up against Williams.
Clearly, nobody agrees with this, as everyone else picked Williams as not only their top quarterback, but their top player (as the aforementioned selections that Williams earned explained). It still, however, is funny that even one of the awards claimed that Williams was not the best QB in America.