Football Writers Association of America News

Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. is this week’s nominee for the 2022 Capital One Orange Bowl-FWAA Courage Award. Penix, a fifth-year senior, has established himself as an early season Heisman Trophy candidate after suffering season-ending injuries in each of his previous four campaigns.

The results for the 30th Annual FWAA Best Writing Contest presented by collegepressbox include one writer who claimed a first place for a second straight year, one writer who had three awards and two first-time winners. 

Setting the tone in one of the top team defensive efforts last weekend was Penn State safety Ji’Ayir Brown, who had five tackles, a strip-sack and an interception as the Nittany Lions went into Auburn and left with a 41-12 win. For recording his first career sack, picking off his first pass of the season and leading the first Big Ten school to a home-and-home sweep of a Southeastern Conference school since 2012, Brown earned the Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week honor for games of the weekend of Sept. 17, as selected by the Football Writers Association of America.

The Eastern Michigan Eagles jumped ahead with a fast start and ran past Arizona State, 30-21, in Tempe, Ariz., with running back Samson Evans gained 257 yards in a historic night. For handing Arizona State its first home non-conference loss since 2017 and becoming the first Mid-American Conference team to beat a Pac-12 Conference school in the regular season, the Eagles (2-1) earned the Cheez-It Bowl National Team of the Week honor for games of the weekend of Sept. 17, as selected by the Football Writers Association of America.

A look at the top performances from freshman players and first-year head coaches in Week 3 of the 2022 college football season.

Clemson’s Bryan Bresee is this week’s nominee for the 2022 Capital One Orange Bowl-FWAA Courage Award. Bresee, a third-year sophomore, started and posted two tackles and one quarterback hurry in Saturday’s win over Furman, before traveling to be with his family as his 15-year-old sister Ella battles an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Setting two American Athletic Conference records with 4.5 sacks and 6.5 tackles for loss among his 11 total tackles, defensive end Derek Parish set a tone for an aggressive Houston defense in a road game at Texas Tech. Despite a 33-30 loss in overtime, the outstanding effort earned Parish the Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week honor for games of the weekend of Sept. 10, as selected by the Football Writers Association of America.

The App State Mountaineers and Marshall Thundering Herd set the table with historic afternoon upsets at Texas A&M and Notre Dame, then the Georgia Southern Eagles added another at Nebraska at the end a memorable Saturday for the Sun Belt Conference. After those three epic upsets and for the first time in 21 seasons the Football Writers Association of America has awarded all three schools the Cheez-It Bowl National Team of the Week honor for games of the weekend of Sept. 10.

A look at the top performances from freshman players and first-year head coaches in Week 2 of the 2022 college football season.

A look at the top performances from freshman players and first-year head coaches in Week 1 of the 2022 college football season.

Leading the way with nine tackles, Tommy Eichenberg and the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes shut down No. 5 Notre Dame in the last three quarters of a 21-10 win to take the highlight game of college football’s first full weekend. For posting his team-high tackles – six of them solo and three of them for losses to go with a pair of sacks – Eichenberg earned the Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week honor for games in the extended weekend of Sept. 3, as selected by the Football Writers Association of America.

The Florida Gators overcame four deficits and used an explosive night from quarterback Anthony Richardson to win their home opener 29-26 over No. 7 Utah, the defending Pac-12 champion, in front of a packed house at Florida Field. For giving new head coach Billy Napier a win in his debut in The Swamp, Florida earned the Cheez-It Bowl National Team of the Week honor for games of the weekend of Sept. 3, as selected by the Football Writers Association of America.

The Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and the National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame announced today that they will partner for the eighth time to conduct The FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll, the organizations' weekly major-college football poll.

Orlando, Fla._The FWAA is now accepting applications for the 26th annual Volney Meece Scholarship.

Contact  Alan Schmadtke at  meece@fwaa.com for an application..

Alan, the FWAA's 2005 President, is taking over the administration of the scholarship program from 2001 President Dave Sittler who has run it since its inception in 1997. Applications must be received by Dec. 15, 2022.

The scholarship is awarded annually by the FWAA and named for the late Volney Meece, who served 22 years as the FWAA’s Executive Director and was the organization’s President in 1971.

The $1,000 annual grant for four years is awarded to a deserving son or daughter of an FWAA member. High school seniors and current college students are eligible. Since the program started in 1997, the FWAA has distributed  nearly $100,000 in scholarship money to deserving children of FWAA members.

The winner will be announced in January.

The Football Writers Association of America has announced the preseason watch list for the 2022 Outland Trophy, recognizing 89 returning standout interior linemen representing all 10 Division I FBS conferences and independents. The 2022 season will close with the award's 77th anniversary and the watch list offers a talented field of players to accompany two returning FWAA All-Americans.

The Football Writers Association of America released its 2022 Bronko Nagurski Trophy Watch List today, selecting 85 defensive standouts from 61 schools in all 10 Division I FBS conferences plus independents. The watch list roster includes five returning players from last season’s FWAA All-America team including 2021 winner Will Anderson Jr. of Alabama, five of the top 13 tacklers from last season, the top two sack leaders and six of the top 13, and two players in the secondary who each had five interceptions last year.

Richard Johnson of Sports Illustrated is the recipient of the third Edward Aschoff Rising Star Award, which is presented annually by the Football Writers Association of America and named after the beloved ESPN college football reporter who died on Christmas Eve in 2019 on his 34th birthday from previously undetected Stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in his lungs.

College football fans in Alabama and Texas are already counting down the days until Sept. 10 when the Crimson Tide plays the Longhorns in Austin in a preview of a future Southeastern Conference showdown. For eight sports media students – four from each school – this is a class project of a lifetime, boiling down months of Google tracking and Zoom calls into eight hours of fast-paced, locally produced game day coverage. It will be the first of this kind of collaboration by any two university sports media programs in the country.

Three first-time winners and eight previous ones comprise the 13th Super 11 Awards, which the Football Writers Association of America gives out annually to the best performing sports information departments in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The awards announced this week are for the 2021 season. In addition, the FWAA presented a Super 11 Coach of the Year Award to Boston College Coach Jeff Hafley who granted outstanding access to his program during the 2021 season. He is the fourth head coach to win this award, which began with the 2018 season.

Pitt's Hugh Green, a two-time member of the FWAA All-America Team, has been named the 2022 recipient of the Bronko Nagurski Legends Award and will be honored at the Bronko Nagurski Awards Banquet presented by Lending Tree on Dec. 5 at the Charlotte Convention Center.