With the SEC West on the line, Brian Kelly put it on the narrow but durable frame of Jayden Daniels.

The LSU coach didn’t want double overtime against Alabama, and neither did Daniels.

After the Tigers quarterback scampered into the end zone for what could’ve been a game-tying touchdown (pending the extra point), Kelly opted for the potential game-winning 2-point conversion. He did that because of Daniels, AKA the guy that Kelly plucked out of the transfer portal in the middle of his first spring in Baton Rouge. The 2-point conversion progressions were simple. Daniels could either hit true freshman tight end Mason Taylor in the flat running nearly parallel to the goal line, or he could improvise.

“If it wasn’t there,” Daniels said afterward, “hopefully I could make something of it with my legs. But I was able to give Mason a ball he could catch and the rest is history.”

A year later, Daniels has a chance for more history in his second showdown against Alabama. Like, a lot more.

Let’s start with the individual history that Daniels is pursuing. Since Nick Saban has been at Alabama, Jordan Jefferson is the only quarterback to beat the Tide in consecutive years (2010-11). With all due respect to the former LSU starter, he combined for 1 touchdown and 298 scrimmage yards in those 2 meetings. To say that he was the main reason that the Tigers took down the Tide in both matchups would be a stretch.

Compare that to Daniels, who had 277 scrimmage yards and 3 touchdowns, as well as the pass that converted the game-winning 2-point conversion in his first meeting against Alabama.

Daniels has a chance to be the Tide’s kryptonite in a way that perhaps no SEC quarterback has been, even including the great Johnny Manziel, who fell just short of that win No. 2 in the grudge match in College Station in 2013. You could argue that Deshaun Watson currently holds the title for “best QB ever against Saban’s Alabama” because of his 2 national championship performances. Unlike some of the great one-off performances against Alabama from quarterbacks like Cam Newton, Bo Wallace, Cardale Jones, Chad Kelly and Trevor Lawrence, Watson did it twice. He just wasn’t on the winning side both times.

If Daniels wins in Tuscaloosa on Saturday, it will take his legacy into a different stratosphere.

No, Daniels isn’t suddenly about to be in the Joe Burrow conversation among the best quarterbacks in college football history, but it’s worth remembering that even Burrow got shut out during 1 of his 2 matchups against the Tide. Even if Alabama isn’t what it once was, it’s still Saban leading a team that’s unbeaten in SEC play heading into November. Running it back would be the stuff of legend.

It would also be the type of thing that could put Daniels firmly in the driver’s seat for the Heisman Trophy. Oh, but what about the 2 losses, you ask? It might hurt Daniels’ odds of being a slam-dunk candidate, but as recently as last year, we watched the quarterback of a 2-loss team win the award. Including Caleb Williams, here are all the 21st-century quarterbacks of teams with 2 or more pre-Heisman losses:

  • 2002 — Carson Palmer, 10-2 USC
  • 2007 — Tim Tebow, 9-3 Florida
  • 2011 — Robert Griffin III, 9-3 Baylor
  • 2012 — Johnny Manziel, 10-2 Texas A&M
  • 2016 — Lamar Jackson, 9-3 Louisville
  • 2022 — Caleb Williams, 11-2 USC

While the 2-loss thing isn’t as much of a Heisman deal-breaker as some might realize (the 4-team Playoff is a different story … unless a 2-loss team can beat both Alabama and Georgia), there has proven to be a certain statistical benchmark that’s needed for those winners. Except for Palmer, all of those quarterbacks of 2-loss teams hit at least 40 pre-Heisman touchdowns. The last time any quarterback won the award without hitting that mark pre-ceremony was 2006 when Troy Smith edged out sophomore Darren McFadden, who didn’t get the nod because of that weird underclassman stigma that existed until Tebow broke it the following year.

Daniels already has just 1 fewer pre-Heisman touchdowns (30) than Smith (31), and he’s on pace to hit 45 pre-Heisman scores. Mind you, that’s with 4 regular season games left and possibly a fifth if LSU can get to an SEC Championship. Of course, that’s a huge “if.” Even if Daniels leads LSU to a win in Tuscaloosa — something that only 6 quarterbacks have done since the start of 2008 — he could still have to avenge last year’s A&M loss to punch a ticket to Atlanta — where a possible Playoff berth could be on the line.

Obviously, the path to a West repeat gets a whole lot clearer with a win on Saturday. That’s something that LSU has never accomplished since the SEC Championship became a thing in 1992. Alabama is the only West team to ever win consecutive division titles en route to a conference championship game.

If Daniels can be the quarterback to lead LSU to that feat, it’d be top-of-the-résumé stuff. Like, forever. That 2-point conversation last year probably took care of any of Daniels’ bar/restaurant tabs in Louisiana for the rest of his life. Another Daniels-led LSU win against the Tide would be a substantial boost to his future bank account.

But in the more in the immediate future, there’s something of even greater magnitude that’s on the line for Daniels and LSU — history.