Miami’s Cam Ward, one of the top quarterback prospects in the upcoming NFL Draft, received the Davey O’Brien Award Monday night and sent a message to teams considering passing on him.

“OK, you’re either going to draft me or you’re not,” Ward told the Associated Press ahead of receiving the award as the nation’s top college quarterback. “If you don’t draft me, that’s your fault. You’ve got to remember you’re the same team that’s got to play me for the rest of my career, and I’ll remember that.”

Ward made the comments while addressing the perception that he quit on his team by not playing the second half of the Pop-Tarts Bowl, a game that the Miami Hurricanes lost to Iowa State. In that game, Ward broke the Division I career touchdown passes record in the first half before watching from the sidelines as his teammates blew a 10-point second-half lead.

Ward said he wouldn’t make any changes to how he handled the bowl game.

“I wish we could have ended up winning the game,” he told the AP. “If we had won the game, they wouldn’t have said nothing. And so that’s usually how it goes. And, you know, you just got to take it on the chin and just keep pushing.”

Ward is The Athletic’s top quarterback prospect in this year’s draft. He’s coming off an outstanding season that saw him named a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, selected to the first-team Associated Press All-America team and chosen as the winner of the Manning Award.

In his lone season at Miami, Ward completed 67.2 percent of his passes for 4,313 yards, 39 touchdowns and seven interceptions. Prior to 2024, Ward spent two seasons each at Incarnate Word and Washington State.

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(Photo: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)