FWAA News Articles

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

South Carolina coach Shane Beamer and Tennessee coach Josh Heupel are the co-winners of the Steve Spurrier First-Year Coach of the Year Award presented by the Football Writers Association of America and Chris Doering Mortgage.

Tennessee coach earns second first-year coaching plaudit from FWAA

TIght end earned second-team FWAA All-America honors playing for national champs

Veteran sportswriter Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports has been named the recipient of the FWAA’s Bert McGrane Award for 2022, symbolic of the association’s Hall of Fame. He will be honored during the Past Presidents Dinner here tonight.

Three coaches, players up for Steve Spurrier Award and National Freshman of the Year