As of yesterday, DeAndre Washington, Jakeem Grant, and Patrick Mahomes are all Semifinalists for the Earl Campbell Award, given to the nation's top offensive player. The award is incredibly new, as it was first awarded in 2013 to Baylor quarterback Bryce Petty. Since then, it has been awarded to Trevone Boykin of TCU in 2014.
Despite the award being limited to those who played football at either the collegiate or high school level in Texas, it is still a prestigious award to be nominated for. The other nominees are James Washington of OK State (formerly of Stamford HS), Greg Ward of Houston (John Tyler HS), Larry Rose III of New Mexico State (Fairfield HS), Samaje Perine of Oklahoma (Pflugerville Hendrickson HS), Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma (Lake Travis HS), Shock Linwood of Baylor (Linden-Kildare HS), Christian Kirk of Texas A&M (Saguaro HS [AZ]), Aaron Green of TCU (SA Madison HS), Keyariss Garrett of Tulsa (Daingerfield HS), Josh Doctson of TCU (Mansfield Legacy HS), Corey Coleman of Baylor (Richardson Pearce HS), Trevone Boykin of TCU (West Mesquite HS), and JT Barrett of Ohio State (Wichita Falls Rider HS).
Texas Tech is the only school with 3 on this list. The season's stats for our three nominees have been absolutely staggering. Jakeem Grant totaled 1143 receiving yards and 68 rushing yards with 7 TD receptions and 2 TD rushes. Grant was also 1 for 1 passing with 1 TD and 78 yards. DeAndre Washington had 1455 rushing yards with 308 receiving yards, racking up 14 TDs on the ground and 2 TD catches. Patrick Mahomes was responsible for 4283 yards passing with 8.3 yards per attempt, and 484 yards on the ground. Mahomes tossed 32 TDs to only 14 INTs, and picked up 10 TDs on the ground. Somewhere in there cfbstats.com says that he caught a pass for 3 yards, but i'm not too sure on that.
All in all, this is a very prestigious list to be a part of, and the fact that we have 3 young men on this list is outstanding. Woefully, we've been left out of the Heisman race, and likely the Maxwell as well, so it would be nice for one of our guys to bring home some hardware. When you look at the raw stats, they absolutely deserve far more recognition than they've gotten.
