Mike Hawkins Jr. put on an absolute show this past weekend against Cincinnati, completing 25-of-33 passes for 464 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for 77 yards and two touchdowns on 26 carries. It may not have been his most effective day running the ball, but it certainly was throwing it.
Despite the massive performance, Hawkins was not named the Big 12 Conference's Offensive Player of the Week, which came as a major shock. Instead, the honor went to BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier.
Sure, Bachmeier played well in the win over No. 2 Notre Dame, going 23/36 for 224 yards, one touchdown, and one interception, in addition to 45 yards and two scores on 13 carries, but there's no way that trumps what Hawkins did.
Especially when you take into consideration that Hawkins had to lead his team out of a 3rd and 9 from their own 2-yard line on what would be the game-winning drive. His two 40-yard completions to Prince Strachan set the Mountaineers up in the field goal range, and Jack Cassidy finished the job, booting it through the uprights for the walk-off winner.
"The nice part about it is, he's still going to keep getting better and better," WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez said about his quarterback on his radio show Monday night. "I'm really excited about the way he's coming along. He's faced new challenges every week. One of his best traits, and I saw it in the spring, is that he has a certain level of decisiveness, even before he learned the whole system. You can see that coming, and his confidence continuing to grow. There's a lot we can do, and he's not holding us back. We got new guys up front, and we've got young guys at wideout, but Mike can handle a lot. The exciting part about it is I think we can do more and more with him, and he's got two more years. We want to continue to grow with him. His best football is still out in front of him."
Obviously, all that matters for the Mountaineers is that they got the win, but still, it's wild that the Big 12 didn't give him the proper respect for what he did.
With that 464-yard performance, Hawkins is now 5th in the Big 12 Conference in passing with 1,519 yards, which is also good for 40th among all FBS quarterbacks.
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