New ESPN article, it's almost a novel.
Daniels was third on the depth chart when he transferred to LSU. This is how he won the QB battle and unlocked his potential.
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IN HIS FIRST start at his new school, Daniels and the offense sputter through the first 55 minutes against Florida State. But down 24-10, Daniels comes to life and leads two late scoring drives to pull within 24-23 with no time left on the clock. There is buzz on the sideline about possibly going for two and winning the game outright. But Daniels is cramped up on the bench, trying to get ready for overtime. With Daniels unavailable, the coaches make a quick decision to kick the extra point.
But in an unbelievable gut-punch moment, FSU blocks the kick to hang on. Daniels doesn't even see the play -- and yet he'll also never be able to unsee it.
He tells teammates and coaches the next week that if they're ever in that situation again, they have to go for two and win the game. Daniels is bothered after the game that LSU let a big opening win slip away. He shares that with Wilson, who isn't hearing any of it. "We lost because you couldn't sustain," he says to Daniels about his cramps.
That cuts Daniels deep, but he doesn't disagree. Wilson's directness, along with Nabers & Co. constantly badgering him, has thickened Daniels' skin. He needed the exposure therapy that LSU's difficult, competitive environment provided, and Wilson notices Daniels' growth. Rather than balling up his fists and firing back, he seems as if he has the kind of confidence to absorb criticism without it going directly to his heart. LSU is 0-1, so the results haven't shown up in the standings yet. But somehow it feels as if Daniels 2.0 has arrived.
LSU goes 6-1 after the Florida State loss to claw back into the College Football Playoff conversation. Daniels shows off everything he could ever be, and his teammates have rallied behind him. He's their guy, but at practice, he's still showing signs of being an indecisive passer. Kelly and the coaching staff stay on him about making a read, setting his feet and letting the ball fly. Even two months into the season, he occasionally has an hour at practice where he looks jittery and delivers the ball late or to the wrong guy. As far as Daniels can tell, he remains a bad half away from getting benched. Daniels feels immense frustration that he somehow has command of the locker room but not the pocket.
The season feels as if it's hanging in the balance. At 6-2, LSU can still technically win the SEC and make a CFP push. But Daniels has been so inconsistent that it's tough to imagine him getting the Tigers' offense on a heater down the stretch.
The bad news is that there will be no warmup period -- No. 6 Alabama is coming to Baton Rouge the next weekend.
THE TIDE DEFENSE is in Daniels' face all day, sacking him six times. But Daniels is the best player on the field, constantly flummoxing Alabama, then getting sacked, then flummoxing the defense again. LSU has a 24-21 lead late when Bama ties it, forcing overtime.
Bama, a two-touchdown favorite, gets the ball first in OT and marches right down to take a 31-24 lead. The entire roster watches as the Tigers' defenders walk off the field looking gassed. There's a general vibe that Alabama can do whatever it wants with the ball on offense, and that Daniels better have a bunch of touchdowns left in him. LSU hasn't beaten Alabama in Baton Rouge since 2010, so the mood at Tiger Stadium is downright despondent.
On the first play, Daniels fakes a handoff and poof, he is gone on a 25-yard touchdown. It's one of those silly video game runs that only a handful of players -- Michael Vick,
Lamar Jackson, maybe prime Steve Young -- can even think about trying. He prances into the end zone, the crowd goes wild, and the LSU sideline goes silent. Everybody thinks back to the Florida State game. Kick the extra point or go for the win?
Kelly is leaning toward kicking the extra point. About half of the coaches agree with him. Half don't. Pretty much every player is yelling to go for it. Thomas, for one, makes the case to kick the extra point.
When Daniels gets to the sideline, Kelly can see his quarterback's opinion in his eyes. For two months since the Florida State game, Daniels has been telling anybody who will listen that he'll never lose another game like that again.
"We're going to go for two and win the game," Daniels says to Kelly.
"OK, we'll win it then," Kelly says, and he puts two fingers in the air.
Players go wild on the sideline, and LSU rushes their offense in with a read-option play where Daniels has to decide whether to hand to Josh Williams or keep it. As they set up, Alabama panics and realizes the defense has 12 men on the field. The Tide call a timeout, and LSU has more time to reconsider the decision. For about 10 seconds, Kelly has second thoughts.
"Are we really going to do this?" he asks his staff.
The answer is yes -- they call a rollout where Daniels sprints to the right with Nabers and tight end Mason Taylor as his options. On the sideline, Thomas gets down on one knee and grits his teeth. "At that point, I did think we were going to get it," he says.
At the snap, Daniels rolls right but immediately sees that the Bama defense is pinching up toward him, so he zips a throw toward the front corner of the end zone. Taylor catches it and crashes to the ground, and before he even climbs to his feet, fans pour down on the field. Thomas jumps to his feet and starts running out to Daniels but can't get to him through the sea of Tigers students, many of whom were kindergartners the last time LSU beat Bama at home. If Daniels had retired from football on the spot, he would be one of those Tigers legends who will forever drink for free in Baton Rouge.
"There were plays he made that day that I don't think anybody else who plays football, college or NFL, could have made," says Denbrock. "I realized that day that he was ready for more."
This is the moment when the Hollywood version of the Jayden Daniels movie will cut from that day, Nov. 5, 2022, to a montage of him winning the Heisman a year later, then being the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft, then his NFL heroics with Washington in 2024.
That montage would skip right past what actually happened next, which is something that his teammates and coaches still just refer to, in sad voices, as "The Arkansas Game.""
That is just maybe 5% of the article.
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