NEW ORLEANS (December 3, 2025) – Fans have selected California's Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele as the Manning Award Quarterback of the Week. He earned the honor over seven other Manning Award Stars of the Week in the Allstate Sugar Bowl's online fan voting contest. This is Sagapolutele's second time earning this honor, as he also won after his week ten performance.
 
Sagapolutele, who recorded career-highs in passing yards and touchdowns, directed the Bears to 75 yards on seven plays (including 5-of-5 passing) in just over a minute as they scored the game-winning touchdown with 43 seconds remaining to shock No. 21 SMU, 38-35, in an ACC showdown. He finished his day 31-of-40 for 330 yards and four touchdowns. He was also named ACC Rookie and Quarterback of the Week.
 
The Ewa Beach, Hawai'i, native finished the regular season completing 288-of-453 passes for 3,117 yards and 17 touchdowns. He is just the second FBS player to record 12 consecutive games of 200+ yards passing to begin a collegiate career – Houston's David Piland began his career with 14 straight 200-yard games from 2010 to 2012 (he was injured in 2011).
 
Sagapolutele and the Bears concluded the regular season with a 7-5 overall record and a 4-4 conference record, finishing in seventh in the ACC.
 
The other Manning Award Stars of the Week were Byrum Brown (South Florida), Trinidad Chambliss (Ole Miss), Brad Jackson (Texas State), Trey Kukuk (Louisiana Tech), Amari Odom (Kennesaw State), Diego Pavia (Vanderbilt), and Jalen Raynor (Arkansas State).
 
The Allstate Sugar Bowl will announce the finalists for the 2025 Manning Award tomorrow (Thursday, Dec. 4). The winner will be announced following the College Football Playoff National Championship game. It is the only quarterback award that takes the candidates' bowl and playoff performances into consideration in its balloting.
 
In its first 21 years, the Manning Award has recognized the top names in college football. It has honored quarterbacks from 15 different schools and from four different conferences. The Southeastern Conference (Jayden Daniels, Stetson Bennett, Bryce Young, Joe Burrow, Mac Jones, Johnny Manziel, Cam Newton, JaMarcus Russell and Tim Tebow) leads the way with nine Manning Award honorees, while the Big 12 Conference (Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, Vince Young, Colt McCoy and Robert Griffin III) and the Atlantic Coast Conference (Cam Ward, Deshaun Watson twice, Matt Ryan and Jameis Winston) have each had five winners.
 
All the Manning Award winners follow in the footsteps of the Mannings themselves. In college, Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning combined for over 25,000 passing yards and 201 touchdowns while playing in 10 bowl games and earning four bowl MVP awards. Archie was the No. 2 pick in the NFL Draft, while both Peyton and Eli were selected No. 1 overall.