Inside The Huskies

Will Rogers' Big Reward is NFL Career, Not College Awards

The Husky quarterback gets placed on Davey O'Brien watch list.

Dan Raley

Will Rogers and Demond Williams Jr. throw at the same time in UW practice.
Will Rogers and Demond Williams Jr. throw at the same time in UW practice. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Will Rogers could have stayed at Mississippi State and become the SEC's all-time passing leader. He could have topped everyone on a glorious list that holds the names of Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Dak Prescott, Matthew Stafford, Drew Lock and Tim Tebow.

Instead, he walked away with 12,315 career yards, which left him just 851 yards -- or about three or four really productive games -- shy of catching the leader, former Georgia standout Aaron Murray, who played in 2010-13.

Rogers chose to transfer to the University of Washington and try to advance his football career under the guidance of coach Jedd Fisch rather than settle for a still fairly prominent spot in the SEC record book.

"A record is one thing, and it would be cool to be talked about and all that stuff," Rogers said. "But I want to play this game for a really long time. I want to be a professional. I think coach Fisch is the best place for me right now."

Besides, he has other accolades he can address from Seattle. On Thursday, Rogers was one of 36 quarterbacks named to the Davey O'Brien Award preseason watch list -- putting him in the running for an individual honor that goes to the nation's top signal-caller.

The award is named after a Dallas native and former TCU standout who won the 1938 Heisman Trophy, briefly played in the NFL for some really bad teams and became an FBI agent for a decade. O'Brien was 60 when he died in 1977.

The 6-foot-2, 216-pound Rogers finds himself as one of four Big Ten quarterbacks in the running for the latest O'Brien Award, joined by Ohio State's 6-foot-4, 237-pound Will Howard, Oregon's 5-foot-11, 204-pound Dillon Gabriel and Penn State's 6-foot-5, 238-pound Drew Allar. All are seniors except for Allar, who's a junior. Rogers will go head to head with Gabriel and Allar this season.

Naturally, there ar six SEC quarterbacks on the O'Brien list, topped by Georgia's Carson Beck and Alabama's Jalen Milroe.

The O'Brien Award, won last year by LSU's Jayden Daniels, will be announced on ESPN's awards show on Dec. 12.

As for Rogers, he recently was named to the preseason watch list for the Maxwell Award, which is given to the nation's most outstanding player, similar to the Heisman, and was won last season by the UW's Michael Penix Jr.

Rogers has no trouble looking beyond all the glitter, the possible records and individual honors, in order to give himself the best chance to become an NFL player. It's why he didn't go through an extended transfer portal experience for a second time once former UW coach Kalen DeBoer left for Alabama and Fisch replaced him.

"I'm not a big, flashy guy," Rogers said. "I don't love the recruiting thing, the whole photo shoots and all that. I'm in this thing to play football."

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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