By now, the mailman ought to just leave Conner Weigman's watch-list invitations in a stack by the door. In the span of three weeks this August, the Houston senior has been informed—by four separate committees, four separate foundations, and four separate press releases to whichever intern still keeps the master list—that he is one of the best quarterbacks in the country. The Maxwell Award wanted him on Aug. 3. The Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award wanted him on Aug. 19. The Davey O'Brien people wanted him the very next day. And on Monday, the Manning family wanted him too, tapping Weigman for the preseason watch list of the award that bears their name—one of 40 quarterbacks nationally, one of eight from the Big 12, and the only one from Houston.
It is, at this point, less an honor than a pattern. The Manning Award is the newest addition, but it may be the one that means the most, if only because of how it operates. Sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl and now in its 23rd year, it is the rare quarterback trophy with the patience to wait—the winner isn't named until after the College Football Playoff National Championship on Jan. 27, once conference title games and bowl season have had their say.
"We look forward to watching these quarterbacks compete, especially when the stakes are highest," Archie Manning said in the announcement, which is the family's polite way of noting that nothing on this list is decided yet. A year ago, Fernando Mendoza didn't just make the watch list — he went out and became the first Indiana Hoosier to win the thing outright.
Weigman's case for eventually doing the same starts with a record and a stat sheet that both back it up. He is 19-7 as a starter. Through the air last season, he completed 232 of 356 throws for 2,705 yards, 25 touchdowns, and nine interceptions—a 65.2 percent clip that would satisfy most any coordinator on its own. On the ground, he added 700 yards and 11 more touchdowns, the kind of number that turns a pocket passer into something closer to a two-way problem. Add it up, and it's 3,405 yards of total offense—the most by a Houston quarterback since 2021—and 36 total touchdowns, a figure that led the Big 12 and ranked seventh nationally.
Here's the detail worth sitting with: Since 2021, only 17 quarterbacks have won at least 10 games while throwing for 3,000 yards, tossing 35 touchdowns and turning the ball over 10 times or fewer. Two of them are still playing college football. One is Arch Manning. The other is Conner Weigman. That's the kind of coincidence a family named Manning is built to appreciate.
None of it guarantees anything, and Weigman knows as well as anyone how quickly a promising season can unravel—three rocky, injury-shortened years at Texas A&M taught him that lesson before he ever took a snap at Houston. But a healthy Weigman, in his second year running Slade Nagle's offense, with a deeper receiver room and a Big 12 media day full of people finally asking about him instead of around him, has given the Cougars a version of their quarterback nobody outside of Houston expected quite this fast.
The watch lists will keep piling up between now and kickoff. A midseason cut to the Manning Award list arrives Nov. 5, trimmed down to the quarterbacks still starting and still producing. Whatever's left of the list by January is the only one that will actually matter. Everything before that is just the mail.
