It’s how you know we have gone past the mid-point in college football. No, not the BCS standings. The myriad of awards keep putting out their mid-season or semi-finalist lists. Anything to remind people that there are other college football awards besides the Heisman.
Bill Stull has made the list of 15 semi-finalists for the Davey O’Brien Award for best quarterback. It’s nice recognition for a season that has been stunningly efficient. The odds of Stull making the cut to 3 finalists is rather slim. In terms of name recognition and statistitcs, he is an unlikely candidate. While Stull is one of the most efficient QBs nationally, Kellen Moore at Boise State has comparable numbers but more TD passes. Then there’s the name brands of Tim Tebow and Colt McCoy. Plus the numbers put up by ND’s Clausen. Still, there is fan voting (allegedly) at this site (though I couldn’t get it to load this morning).
Coach Wannstedt also made one of the many “Coach of the Year” lists. This one is the Bear Bryant CFB Coach of the Year remaining 20 semi-finalists. With the exceptions of Akey (Idaho) and Golden (Temple) the list looks like it was cribbed from this week’s top-20 teams.
In a more immediate and somewhat surprising honor. Dom DeCicco was named the Big East Defensive Player of the Week.
DeCicco, who had significant run support responsibilities against the Bulls, compiled a team-high 10 tackles (nine solo) to lead an impressive Pitt defensive effort.
USF managed only 212 yards of total offense. The Bulls entered the game averaging 407.3 yards and 33.7 points per game.
DeCicco is playing at an all-star level for the nationally ranked Panthers. The 6-foot-3, 230-pound defensive back leads Pitt in tackles (62) and interceptions (tied with two). Among all Big East defenders, he ranks seventh with 7.8 tackles per game.
DeCicco took a lot of abuse early in the season for missed tackles and assignments. So this is a nice bit of recognition. The only negative to me, is that it just doesn’t seem like a particularly good thing that Pitt’s strong safety is the team’s leading tackler when this is a defensive unit that doesn’t blitz or bring the safeties up that much. It just points to the struggles to date with the linebackers this year.
