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Oklahoma QB Jackson Arnold Lands on Maxwell Watch List

The Sooners' first-year signal caller is up for college football's national player of the year award.

John E. Hoover

Oklahoma quarterback Jackson Arnold
Oklahoma quarterback Jackson Arnold / SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY
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Oklahoma quarterback Jackson Arnold said at SEC Media Days he is embracing the high expectations of leading the Sooners.

That’s good, because expectations don’t get much higher than the national player of the year.

On Monday, Arnold landed on the preseason watch list for the Maxwell Award, given to college football’s top player.

Former Washington quarterback Michael Penix received the award in 2023. Former Sooner Caleb Williams won it in 2022 at USC.

OU quarterbacks who received the Maxwell Award are Baker Mayfield (2017) and Jason White (2004). Split end Tommy McDonald won it in 1956.

“There’s a lot of pressure that comes with this position for sure," Arnold said in Dallas. "Again, at the end of the day, I just gotta go out and perform to the best of my abilities and hope I live up to that lineage.”

Arnold will make his second career start when the Sooners host Temple on Aug. 30.

He served 12 games as Dillon Gabriel’s backup as a true freshman last season. After Gabriel entered the transfer portal last December, Arnold took over the starting job ahead of the Alamo Bowl against Arizona.

In that game, Arnold passed for 361 yards and two touchdowns, but also threw three interceptions and lost a fumble.

The 6-foot-1, 211-pound sophomore from Denton, TX, completed 44-of-69 passes (80.4 percent) for 563 yards with four TDs and three INTs last season. He also rushed for 31 yards and a touchdown.

He signed with the Sooners as a 5-star prospect out of Guyer High School, where he was the Gatorade National Player of the Year in 2022. Arnold enrolled at OU in January 2023 and almost immediately assumed the backup role behind Gabriel last spring.

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John E. Hoover

JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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