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Looks like we did about as well as you'd expect:

Coach of the Year: Luke Fickell
Offensive Player of the Year: Desmond Ridder

First Team All-AAC:
QB - Desmond Ridder
RB - Gerrid Doaks
OL - James Hudson

DL - Myjai Sanders
LB - Jarell White
CB - Coby Bryant
CB - Ahmad Garnder
S - James Wiggines

Second Team All-AAC
WR - Michael Young Jr.
TE - Josh Whyle

DL - Marcus Brown
DL - Elijah Ponder
LB - Darrian Beavers
P - James Smith
KR - Tre Tucker

Honorable Mention:
OL - Darius Harper
S - Darrick Forrest (kind of surprised by him not being in the numbered teams...)

So yes...the only position group we didn't have an All-AAC honoree was kicker.

That is one solid round up by the cats.. absolutely impressive.

Cole Smith has been quietly good this year. 42/44 (95.5%) on XPs and 5/6 (83.3%) on FGs, including the clutch performance to help win the UCF game. Next year he could be all conference, although we don’t kick a lot of FGs.

Hard to complain when you get so many guys named but I thought Forrest got hosed and would argue so did Joel Dublanko and Arquon Bush for not even getting named as HM.

Quite a haul for our Bearcats--congratulations to all!

Now let's add one really big piece of hardware Saturday night @ about 11:30 for that trophy case in Varsity Village.

(12-15-2020 12:21 PM)Dannyboy Wrote:  Cole Smith has been quietly good this year. 42/44 (95.5%) on XPs and 5/6 (83.3%) on FGs, including the clutch performance to help win the UCF game. Next year he could be all conference, although we don’t kick a lot of FGs.

Yea, i was going to say that. You know you've had a dominant year when nobody remembers the kicker.

So If I'm looking at this correctly the defense has:
All 3 starting lineman 1st or second team
2 of the 3 linebackers first or second team
3 of the 5 in the secondary are first team, with a 4th being honorable mention.
And honestly Forrest/Bush both have real arguments they should be higher.

I'm fine with the offensive awards as they are.

(12-15-2020 11:29 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Looks like we did about as well as you'd expect:

Coach of the Year: Luke Fickell
Offensive Player of the Year: Desmond Ridder

First Team All-AAC:
QB - Desmond Ridder
RB - Gerrid Doaks
OL - James Hudson

DL - Myjai Sanders
LB - Jarell White
CB - Coby Bryant
CB - Ahmad Garnder
S - James Wiggines

Second Team All-AAC
WR - Michael Young Jr.
TE - Josh Whyle

DL - Marcus Brown
DL - Elijah Ponder
LB - Darrian Beavers
P - James Smith
KR - Tre Tucker

Honorable Mention:
OL - Darius Harper
S - Darrick Forrest (kind of surprised by him not being in the numbered teams...)

So yes...the only position group we didn't have an All-AAC honoree was kicker.

Our punter is great but he was seldom used. I guess punters on bad teams win.

Team 1st 2nd HM Total
UC 8 7 2 17
TULSA 3 5 5 13
MEMPHIS 2 1 2 5
UCF 5 3 1 9
SMU 3 2 1 6
UH 2 1 2 5
NAVY 1 1 0 2
TULANE 3 4 1 8
ECU 1 3 1 5
TEMPLE 0 1 1 2
USF 0 1 0 1

Darrick Forest got shafted. Outside of that looks about right.

We are DBU at all 4 spots not just 3.

I nominated Smooth Billy for the 2020 AAC #1 Foam Finger Fan Award.

Bearcats didn’t need Cole Smith very much because they have superior ball management. In the short yardage red zone they used what I call the ”Super Jumbo Package” with three TEs: 6-8 278# Cam Jones (he caught one pass this season) and athletes 6-6 Josh Whyle and 6-5 Lenny Taylor who made some great catches.
Bearcats only gave up 120 points this year in 8 games. Only Old Dominion U beat the Bearcats in points allowed because the Monarchs didn’t play a single game.
I think James Smith prefers to be called a “kicker” instead of a “punter.” In Australia, punters are shady people who hang around at horse racing tracks and bet, not a nice term to use.

James Smith - Second string all-AAC, but a future 10 year NFL punter.

(12-15-2020 04:29 PM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  James Smith - Second string all-AAC, but a future 10 year NFL punter.

Yeah don't get that. He must have had a record for punts downed inside the 20 in the last 4 years.

(12-15-2020 07:24 PM)Nobones Wrote:  

(12-15-2020 04:29 PM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  James Smith - Second string all-AAC, but a future 10 year NFL punter.

Yeah don't get that. He must have had a record for punts downed inside the 20 in the last 4 years.

It's a frequency issue...there were two AAC games where he straight up didn't punt. Typically, specialists on bad teams end up getting a larger share of all-league nods because of their usage.