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College football’s big end-of-season awards have three or more finalists apiece, and many of those names were announced Monday. See if you can spot what’s missing:
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(It’s Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson is missing.)
The Louisville quarterback is not a finalist for the Davey O’Brien Award, given to the country’s most outstanding quarterback. He’s also not a finalist for the Maxwell Award, a more generic “player of the year” honor. Jackson won the Maxwell last year, when he also won the Heisman Trophy, the sport’s biggest individual honor.
I voted for Jackson as an O’Brien finalist, along with Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield and Oklahoma State’s Mason Rudolph. I omitted Ohio State’s J.T. Barrett, who’s had a slightly* more prolific passing season than Jackson but isn’t nearly the running threat Jackson is. I’ll vote for Mayfield to win both of these awards if his season stays on course.
*Barrett’s got a 166 rating to Jackson’s 149, but that appears to be the result of a few more touchdown passes. Jackson gets more yards per pass, and the running difference between the two of them (605 yards, 5.3 per carry for Barrett, compared to 1,287, 6.8 per carry for Jackson) is massive.
Jackson not being one of the top three QBs in the country this year is a hard sell. He’s still the most dangerous player in college football.
There is a strong case that Jackson’s been better this year than he was in 2016. (He just missed out on the O’Brien, which went to Clemson’s Deshaun Watson.)
Jackson’s gone over 3,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards for the second year in a row, making him the first player in NCAA history to do that, and in some ways he’s been sharper. Nobody can break a game open quite like he can.
Jackson still might be a finalist for the Heisman this year. Mayfield has emerged as the clear frontrunner to win, but if voting’s close enough, lots of guys could get to New York. Jackson’s in that mix, along with Stanford running back Bryce Love, Penn State running back Saquon Barkley, Barrett, and Rudolph, among a few others
Jackson’s problem, more than anything, is that Louisville isn’t good.
The Cardinals are 7-4, and they don’t have any wins of consequence. But that’s not on the QB. Bill Connelly wrote last week, before Jackson destroyed Syracuse in a blowout win:
Virtually none of Louisville’s problems is Jackson's fault. After losing defensive coordinator Todd Grantham to Mississippi State and replacing him with Peter Sirmon, the defense has fallen from 19th to 98th in Def. S&P+; the Cardinals are allowing 1.1 more yards per play in 2017, and they have allowed at least 39 points in all four losses.
The offense? It has improved from 10th to eighth in Off. S&P+ despite Jackson losing his top three receivers and three starting linemen and lining up next to a QB-turned-WR-turned-RB (Reggie Bonnafon) in the backfield.
An accounting of Jackson’s numbers then, which is now one game outdated (but with trends that are pretty much the same):
Comparing Lamar Jackson’s 2016 to 2017
Stat | 2016 Lamar (13 games) | 2017 Lamar (12 games) |
---|---|---|
Stat | 2016 Lamar (13 games) | 2017 Lamar (12 games) |
Completions | 230-for-409 (56%) | 241-for-399 (60%) |
Passing yards | 3,543 | 3,489 |
Passing TDs | 30 | 25 |
INTs | 9 | 6 |
Sacks | 46 | 23 |
YPA (including sacks) | 7.1 | 8 |
Carries | 214 | 185 |
Rushing yards | 1,896 | 1,561 |
YPC | 8.9 | 8.4 |
Rushing TDs | 21 | 17 |
Fumbles | 8 | 8 |
Jackson still has a flair for the dramatic and still makes absurd highlights. Here, have this video of some of his best work just from the month of September:
These aren’t supposed to be team awards.
But if Jackson weren’t on a four-loss team, he’d be on these finalist lists.