Inside The Huskies

Rogers Will Try to Make it Consecutive Maxwell Winners from UW

The transfer quarterback is on the watch list for an award won by Michael Penix Jr.

Dan Raley

Will Rogers stretches out during spring ball.
Will Rogers stretches out during spring ball. / Skylar Lin Visuals

This coming season, Will Rogers will follow Michael Penix Jr. as the next University of Washington starting quarterback.

He'll also have an opportunity to succeed Penix as the Maxwell Award winner, which is given to the nation's most outstanding player and considered a poor man's Heisman Trophy.

This past week, Rogers, a Mississippi State transfer who will play his fifth and final college season for the UW, was included on the Maxwell Award watch list that consists of 80 players, including 40 other quarterbacks.

Penix, while he finished as the Heisman runner-up, was singled out as the 87th Maxwell winner last December for ultimately leading the nation in passing and directing the Huskies on the way to a 14-1 record and a CFP national championship game appearance against Michigan.

Rogers has sterling college football credentials with 12,315 yards and 94 touchdowns passing in his career so far while starting 40 of 43 games at Mississippi State.

Even after setting 29 school or SEC records, the 6-foot-2, 216-pound quarterback still hasn't accumulated much in the way of individual accolades, largely because he played for up and down teams that went 5-7, 9-4, 7-6 and 4-7 in Starkville, Mississippi.

This past winter, Rogers transferred to the UW to become more of a pro-style quarterback under new coach Jedd Fisch and try to improve his chances at getting drafted next April.

The Maxwell Football Club, located in Southhampton, Pennsylvania, which is north of Philadelphia, has given out its award since 1937, when Yale running back Clint Frank was the first recipient.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley

DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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