The three finalists for the Walter Payton Award have been announced and, as expected, Cal Poly wide receiver Ramses Barden wasn’t one of them.
In fact, there were no wide receivers among the finalists as Barden wasn’t even among the top 10 receiving votes. Since the award was first presented in 1987, only one wide receiver has come away with the trophy -- Villanova's Brian Finneran won it in 1997. Four of the past five awards have gone to quarterbacks, starting with Tony Romo of Eastern Illinois in 2002.
The three finalists, as named by The Sports Network, were all quarterbacks: Georgia Southern’s Jayson Foster, San Diego’s Josh Johnson and Eric Sanders of Northern Iowa.
Yeah, can you believe it? Everyone’s favorite coming in, 2006 Payton Award winner Ricky Santos of New Hampshire, wasn’t among the finalists and finished fifth in this year’s balloting. Another surprise was where North Dakota State running back Tyler Roehl fell in the voting. He was eighth after a less than stellar finish for the Bison.
The Payton Award winner will be announced Dec. 13 at the Chattanooga Marriott during the annual Sports Network awards dinner.
The Buck Buchanan Award, given to the best defender in the FCS, and Eddie Robinson Award, for the best coach, will be handed out on the eve of the championship game as well. The Sports Network does not announce finalists for the Buck Buchanan, but Cal Poly does not have a player up for the honor for the first time in five seasons. Mustangs Kyle Shotwell, Chris Gocong and Jordan Beck won the previous three awards.
Delaware running back Omar Cuff was fourth in the Payton Award voting, followed by Santos, Southern Illinois quarterback Nick Hill, Richmond running back Tim Hightower, Roehl, Yale running back Mike McLeod and Appalachian State running back Kevin Richardson. That means Barden finished somewhere between Nos. 11 and 16. Here's a list of the 16 candidates coming into the week along with past winners of the award.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Barden doesn't make final cut
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Gocong is actually mentioned in the lead story on S3 of Monday's paper.
S3? should be S1 and where's my original comment there wasn't anything said wrong in it
Now, I wonder why the blog administrator removed the first comment. Short of having profanity or racism or anything else that is profoundly distasteful, we are all adults here and removing a controversal (I assume) blog comment is not acceptable.
Blog administrator, care to comment or will this comment also be removed?
YES!!
I was just questioning why Gocong didn't make it in a better section of our small local paper...when he makes front headlines in bigger paper sport sections!
Criticism is welcome, in fact it’s encouraged, but distasteful language that wouldn’t make it in the paper will be removed from the blog as well.
Speaking of Gocong, Kyle Shotwell is expected to sign a free agent contract with the Eagles and become teammates with Gocong again this week.
Brian...
Thanks for clarifying. If the original post used distasteful language then I agree with you. If the content of the original post had valid points exclusive of the distasteful language then I would suggest that the words be edited instead of removing the entire post or perhaps note the reason that the post was removed.
I enjoy reading the posts because opinions are expressed regarding Cal Poly sports which pretty much cannot be expressed in the regular newspaper columns.
Many thanks for making this feature available for your readers and also thanks for the information and support that you provide for Cal Poly sports.
1:48 pm- Are you saying you work for Poly sports?
I do NOT work for Cal Poly sports...
I don't get how Roehl got that cred but Steve Walker shared the GWFC award with Barden.
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