(This is part two of a two part series looking at PITT’s chances of having both a Heisman Trophy and a Biletnikoff Award winner in the 2015 season.  Part I was posted earlier)

THE BILETNIKOFF AWARD

Let’s discuss Tyler Boyd and his chances to win the Biletnikoff award.  As we saw in Part I of this article this award has a more narrow criteria for voters than does the Heisman.  It is dedicated to the ‘outstanding’ college receiver of the current season and is announced at a banquet and ceremony in early December.  As described “The Biletnikoff Award is presented annually to the nation’s outstanding college football receiver (the award defines receiver as any player who catches a pass) by the Tallahassee Quarterback Club Foundation, Inc.”  That said, the only winners have been Wide Receivers; Tight Ends, H-Backs and RBs have not truly been considered.  As a matter of fact I can’t find any players other than WRs who finished in the top of the voting for any year.

Why did the Club choose receivers to be honored?

Receiver has become the glamor position and focus in college football, as high-octane passing schemes have become the equalizer and college football team rosters are filled with significant numbers of exceptional athletes who play receiver. The 2013 Biletnikoff Award Watch List, the longest in its history, reflected this talent abundance and the 2013 play of the watch list members merited their designation as the finest receivers in college football.

So that makes more sense in the voting mandates then just having a popularity contest among good players. Here are the actual criteria for the award voting and you can see that the fans’ choice for #1 gets the equivalent of one vote in the final tally.

1. The Biletnikoff Award candidate must be an active collegiate football receiver (any player who receives a thrown pass regardless of position) at an NCAA Division 1 (FBS) institution.
2. The candidate, to remain a candidate, must not have been declared ineligible to participate in Division l (FBS) football by the NCAA at the time of any vote of the Biletnikoff Award National Selection Committee.
3. The candidate, to remain a candidate, must not have been declared ineligible to participate in Division l (FBS) football by the candidate’s institution at the time of any vote of the Biletnikoff Award National Selection Committee.
4. An ineligible player cannot be placed on the watch list and cannot remain on the watch list during that ineligibility; he can be added to or reestablished to the watch list based on proper conduct and on-field performance when his eligibility is restored at the discretion of the Foundation.
5. The candidate must display leadership and self-discipline; and he must have a significant, positive impact on his team’s success.
6. The candidate must display a commitment to be the best player he can be.

So if a player is suspended at any point during the season he drops off the award lists at first but can be added back again by the committee.  How that jibes with  #6 and #7  above, which covers any attitude problems a receiver might have, is a mystery.  Either way I don’t see Boyd having to worry about that aspect of the award, he’s a pretty solid young man all around.  However, there are two tag-along criteria to the six points above, or more like directives from the committee, that may affect Boyd’s chances to win and that is discussed at the end of the article.

The award is named after the great Oakland Raiders wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff who went to Florida State (hence the connection to the Tallahassee QC Club):

Fred Biletnikoff, a 6-1, 190-pounder with excellent hands and deceptive speed, caught 589 passes for 8,974 yards and 76 touchdowns during his 14-year career with the Oakland Raiders from 1965 through 1978. At the time of his retirement, Fred not only dominated the Raiders’ record book for pass receiving but he owned several significant NFL marks as well. Along with another Hall of Fame receiver, Raymond Berry, Fred held the record for having caught 40 or more passes in 10 consecutive seasons. His 70 receptions, 1,167 yards receiving and 10 touchdowns in 19 post-season games were also NFL post-season career records.

We older guys remember watching him play, especially in those great playoff games against the Steelers. While not so flashy and acrobatic as some other WRs he was a steady and highly confident player.  The fact that this award is designed to reward that sort of play is actually reflected in its winners.  Here is a nice page of action videos by the past winners.

The award only goes back to 1994 when Bobby Engram of Penn State won the first year.  One difference between this award and the Heisman is that the Biletnikoff winner doesn’t necessarily have to come from a well-ranked team.  As a matter of fact five of the last ten winners were not on Top 25 (AP) teams.  Here is a list of the winner and you’ll see, and as we all remember with pride, that PITT has been well represented by Antonio Bryant in 2000 and Larry Fitzgerald in 2003.

Last year the award was won by Amari Cooper of Alabama who, surprisingly enough, was the first Alabama Elephant player to win and only the second SEC winner in the award’s history. Huh, I’d have thought there would be more given the talent and speed in that conference.

Can Boyd win this award?

Just as I thought Conner could win if things break his way I believe it could happen with Boyd also but to me he’s a much longer shot for winning.  Here is part of the criteria for the award:  “Season Receiving Statistics are compiled for the Biletnikoff Award watch list players (as they appear in the top 100 of the NCAA receiving statistics), semifinalists (10), and finalists (3), as appropriate.”  In looking further into the actual criteria for the award we see theses two direction points addressed to the voters:

1. A voter may consider the quality of the candidate’s opposing teams and the candidate’s team’s strength of schedule, as well as the candidate’s team’s strength of season record.
2. A voter may consider the candidate’s statistical performance for the season he is a candidate; the Biletnikoff Award is not a career award. Rather, the Biletnikoff Award is a season award, recognizing the outstanding receiver, regardless of position, in college football for that particular season.

That is very interesting to me in that it does take the considerations out of the purely factual and allows some opinion, and unfortunately popularity, based wiggle room to the voters.  Point #1 above probably won’t help Boyd much in the long run as our Strength of Schedule (SoS) isn’t up there with the stronger conference’s teams.  For instance our 2014 Panther team was listed by the Sagarin people as having the nations #61 SoS.  I don’t see it being all that much more in 2015 but that depends on how well our opponents do in the games they play other than against PITT.

So as we see above the statistics are more important for consideration in the Biletnikoff than they are for the Heisman.  With that in mind,  where did Tyler Boyd end up in comparison with his peers in 2014? As much as we PITT fans love Tyler Boyd he wasn’t all that outstanding (in the literal sense) in ’14 when compared with his peers on a national scale :

Total Receptions – 78 (21st nationally)

Total Yards – 1261 – (11th)

Yards per game – 97 (17th)

Catches per game – 6 (32nd)

TDs – 8 (38th)

Yards Per Reception – 16.2 (62nd)

As you see Boyd was in the Top 25 in three categories and pretty low in the other three. That last number is worrisome to me as Boyd came in at 62nd nationally in yards per reception with only 16.2.  His 2013 season’s was even lower as he pulled in only 13.9 YPR.  The reason he was that much lower in ’13 even with the strong armed Tom Savage throwing the passes was because Devin Street was Savage’s 1^st choice as the deep receiver and his YPR was 16.7 that season.  Boyd, being the clear #1 WR with Voytik last season, got some those deeper plays and added three yards to his ’13 average.

That and his low scoring, with only eight TD receptions, can combine to hurt him.  We’ve seen other receivers on the winners list with less TDs but all of them have higher yards per receptions and/or other bigger stats.

Whether or not a continued lower statistical ranking, if he does the same next year, would hurt his chances are undetermined as fact because there have been other winners with lower individual statistics than Boyd had last year.  PSU’s Engram had about the same statistical season in his winning year as Boyd’s ’14 year but his team was the #2 team in the nation with a 12-0 record.  In that particular case winning all your games meant something to the voters.

But again, taken as a whole, I don’t think he’ll be at the top of the Biletnikoff list at the end of the season unless his production picks up rather dramatically. But the odds are that Boyd’s YPR probably won’t jump that much in ’15 because we have a QB in Chad Voytik who really can’t throw a deep ball with any accuracy or consistency and that, yards per reception and TDs, are what Boyd really needs build up to place himself in position to be one of the final three candidates.

Which may not happen because our new OC, Jim Chaney, relies very heavily on his TEs in the passing game.  Last year at Arkansas Chaney’s TEs had 66 receptions for 900 yards! Compare that to Holtz & Orndoff getting only 25 catches for 123 yards last season.  If Cheney reproduces his past approach while here at at PITT, and he has said that he would use the TEs more than they have been used here under the last staff, that will cut into Boyd’s receptions and overall stats.

So Chaney’s doing that with the TEs, if he does,  is a good situation to have for the team but not so good for Boyd’s stats and award chances.  Again, we PITT fans love Boyd and he does get national recognition both in print and when we play on TV , but let’s be honest, part of that is because Boyd and Conner were the only PITT players to be highlighted nationally as ‘stars’ in PITT’s pretty mediocre last season.  That said, others media outlets feel that Boyd is one of the best WRs going into 2015 and his name recognition will help him.   But one explanation for his success, in the linked Bleacher Report article, is that that “Boyd essentially was Pitt’s passing offense. No other Panthers receiver came close. The next-leading receiver in yards was Manasseh Garner (201). The next-leading pass-catcher was J.P. Holtz with 21 grabs.”

Again, it is true that Boyd may be the ‘most valuable’ WR in college football because he is such a force on offense for PITT, but the list of the award winners show that the statistical comparisons to the other players has been the main criteria for winning.  In any event, just like James Conner with the 2015 Heisman Award, the PITT admin should start a season long advertising campaign to get Boyd’s name, face and videos of his great catches, stuck in the voters minds.  Spring practice is around the corner and as mentioned in Part I the PITT Spring Game is being telecast on ESPN 3 so that is an excellent venue to roll out these publicity efforts.

This issue with both the awards will be fun to watch unfold next season, both Conner and Boyd have the talent to jump up and grab those awards, the only thing now is to see if it happens or not.