Walter Camp Football Foundation Announces Five Finalists for 2018 Player of the Year Award
New Haven, Conn. – Four quarterbacks and one linebacker comprise the list of five finalists for the Walter Camp Football Foundation 2018 Player of the Year award. Quarterbacks Will Grier (West Virginia, senior), Kyler Murray (Oklahoma, junior), Gardner Minshew (Washington State, senior) and Tua Tagovailoa (Alabama, sophomore), join senior linebacker Josh Allen (Kentucky) as the five finalists.
2018 Walter Camp Player of the Year FINALISTS
Grier has passed for 3,864 yards and 37 touchdowns for the 8-3 Mountaineers, while Murray has thrown for 37 touchdowns and ranks second in the nation with a 206.8 passing efficiency rating for the sixth-ranked Sooners (11-1). Minshew is the nation’s leader in passing yards (4,477) and has thrown 36 touchdown passes for the eighth-ranked Cougars (10-2). Tagovailoa leads all FBS quarterbacks in passing efficiency (212.5) and has thrown for 36 touchdowns and just two interceptions for the top-ranked Crimson Tide (12-0). Allen has been a dominant force for the 9-3 Wildcats with 84 tackles (18.5 for losses), 14 quarterback sacks and five forced fumbles.
Former University of Oklahoma and current Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield was the 2017 Walter Camp Player of the Year.
The 2018 Walter Camp Player of the Year recipient, who is voted on by the 130 Football Bowl Subdivision head coaches and sports information directors, will be announced on Thursday, December 6 during the 6 p.m. edition of ESPN SportsCenter.
The winner will then receive his trophy at the Foundation’s 52nd annual national awards banquet, presented by David McDermott Lexus of New Haven, on Saturday, January 12, 2019 at Yale University’s Lanman Center.
Walter Camp, “The Father of American football,” first selected an All-America team in 1889. Camp – a former Yale University athlete and football coach – is also credited with developing play from scrimmage, set plays, the numerical assessment of goals and tries and the restriction of play to eleven men per side. The Walter Camp Football Foundation – a New Haven-based all-volunteer group – was founded in 1967 to perpetuate the ideals of Camp and continue the tradition of selecting an annual All-America team. Visit www.waltercamp.org.
The Walter Camp Football Foundation is a member of the National College Football Awards Association (NCFAA). The NCFAA was founded in 1997 as a coalition of the major collegiate football awards to protect, preserve and enhance the integrity, influence and prestige of the game’s predominant awards. The NCFAA encourages professionalism and the highest standards for the administration of its member awards and the selection of their candidates and recipients. Visit www.ncfaa.org.
