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Devin Gardner takes home honor as weekend's best quarterback

One week after a player making his first college start earned the honor, a player making his sixth career start was named the Davey O'Brien Quarterback of the Week.

Michigan junior Devin Gardner was honored Monday after leading the Wolverines to a 41-30 victory over Notre Dame on Saturday. He threw for 294 yards and four touchdowns and also rushed for 82 yards and another score. He did it all in front of 115,109 fans -- the largest on-campus crowd in college football history -- and in his first game wearing No. 98 in an homage to former Michigan great Tom Harmon.

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Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly had said last week that Gardner reminded him of former longtime NFL quarterback Randall Cunningham, and Gardner did his best to live up to the compliment.

Florida State redshirt freshman Jameis Winston had won the season's first O'Brien honor for his performance against Pittsburgh on Sept. 2.

Gardner has a chance to produce more eye-catching stats this week, when the Wolverines welcome woeful Akron. The Zips have won four games since the start of the 2010 season.

Honorable mention O'Brien finalists were BYU's Taysom Hill, Utah State's Chuckie Keeton, Texas A&M's Johnny Manziel, Oregon's Marcus Mariota, Georgia's Aaron Murray and Illinois' Nathan Scheelhaase.

Mike Huguenin can be reached at mike.huguenin@nfl.com. You also can follow him on Twitter @MikeHuguenin.