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College Football Awards were handed out last night in Orlando, Florida, and Jameis Winston was a big winner. He won the Walter Camp Player of the Year Award and the Davey O’Brien Award handed out to the nation’s best QB. In both categories, he beat out A J McCarron and Johnny Manziel. Big night for the ACC. players from that conference took home six awards!
A J McCarron was certainly not left out of the trophy collection…taking the Maxwell Award. This award is given to the nation’s most outstanding player. He became the first player from the University of Alabama to ever win this award. He was humble and gracious as always in his acceptance speech, saying he did not think he was the best player of the three (again, Manziel and Winston in the same category) but it was an honor to win and be there. He has also been quoted as saying Nick Saban will be staying at Bama, not heading to Texas where it continues to rumored that Mack Brown will step down. All a wait and see…
Other awards were: Doak Walker Award for the nation’s most outstanding running back going to Andre Williams of Boston College. He along with Manziel, Winston, McCarron and Tre Mason of Auburn will be in New York on Saturday night for the Heisman Trophy presentation (Winston is the huge favorite). Still, very nice reward for Williams. The Biletnikoff Award honors the nation’s top receiver (once won by Megatron!) and it went to Brandin Cooks of Oregon State. The Home Depot Coach of the Year went to Gus Malzahn, Auburn. No surprise here…what a job he has done with the Tigers from last year (only winning three games) to playing for the National Title this year, and of course, SEC Champs. The Bednarik Award went to Aaron Donald of Pittsburgh. This award recognizes the defensive player of the year. He swept the category by also taking the Outland Trophy, honoring the nation’s top interior lineman. The Jim Thorpe Award went to superstar Darqueze Dennard of Michigan State. This goes to the nation’s top defensive back…well done on that one. The Lou Groza Award (come on old folks, we all know what this is for!) goes to the nation’s top kicker and Robert Aguayo of FSU became that school’s third recipient of the Groza Award! Finally the Ray Guy Award..the nation’s top punter was awarded to Tom Hornsey of Memphis.
Truly special award went to Tulane safety Devon Walker, the Disney Spirit Award. This award goes to the most inspirational team and/or player. Walker was injured on a play against Tulsa last season and is paralyzed from the neck down. Always so horrifying to see these kinds of injuries happen to any type of athlete.
And the fan favorite play of the year went to non other than Chris Davis, the guy who made the 106 yard field goal return for the winning TD in the Iron Bowl. Had to be that one, no doubt!
Meanwhile why all the celebrating was going on in Orlando, not much celebration in Denver last night. Peyton Manning and the Broncos suffered a disappointing loss to the San Diego Chargers (came in with a 6-7 record), falling 27 – 20 at home. No need to read too much into it but still, a bad loss for Denver. They are now 11 – 3. New England is 10 -3 and this tightens up the race for top team in the AFC and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Denver has three remaining games, and they should be favored in all of them.
For now…over and out! All Right, All Right, All Right!
