Jeremy Moses Wins Walter Payton Award
Jeremy Moses’ record-setting passing ability often separated Stephen F. Austin from opposing teams.
Thursday night, the senior quarterback separated himself in the 2010 Walter Payton Award balloting, securing more than two times as many first-place votes as any other candidate, while becoming the 24th annual winner of the Football Championship Subdivision’s most prestigious award as the national player of the year. The Sports Network presents and Fathead.com sponsors the Payton Award.
Moses gained 37 of the 130 first-place votes and finished with 372 points. Quarterbacks Matt Barr of Western Illinois and DeAndre Presley of Appalachian State, who also were on hand at the FCS awards presentation, finished second and third, respectively, with 262 and 182 points.
During the regular season, the 6-foot, 195-pound Moses led the FCS in pass attempts (499), completions (303), touchdown passes (34) and passing yards (3,658), yet threw only four interceptions. He helped lead the Lumberjacks to the Southland Conference title and into the playoffs for a second straight season. They lost in the second round and finished with a 9-3 record.
“It’s a huge team effort,” Moses said. “In this offense, you have to have 11 guys on the same page. When you’re not, bad things happen. All my success, I credit to my teammates. And I’ll continue to do that ’til I die. I’d be nowhere without the guys I played with.”
Moses is the first Southland Conference player to win the Payton Award. In 1989, SFA quarterback Todd Hammel was the runner-up. Over his four-year career, Moses completed an FCS-record 1,184 passes (on 1,893 attempts) for 13,401 yards and 121 touchdowns.
“What we do isn’t very complicated,” Moses said. “Our play-calling into certain coverages has gotten really simple. We know what we’re looking for on the defensive side of the ball and we know what plays we want to run against it. That comes with a lot of film study and experience.”
The Payton Award was voted on by a national panel of sports information and media relations directors, broadcasters, writers and other dignitaries.
In addition to the Walter Payton Award, The Sports Network presents and Fathead.com sponsors the Eddie Robinson Award, which honors the FCS’ coach of the year, and the Buck Buchanan Award, honoring the FCS’ outstanding defensive player.
Henry Frazier III wins Eddie Robinson Award
Prairie View A&M coach Henry Frazier III was named the 23rd winner of the Eddie Robinson Award Thursday night at The Sports Network’s Football Championship Subdivision Awards Banquet, held at the Chattanooga Convention Center on the eve of the NCAA Division I Football Championship title game.
Frazier is the first coach of a Southwestern Athletic Conference team, or a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to win the Robinson Award, which is presented annually to the top coach in FCS. Robinson, the legendary Grambling State coach, spent much of his career in the SWAC.
“It is a humbling honor,” said Frazier. “It’s a great honor to be considered the top coach in your conference and it’s an even greater honor to be considered the top coach in the country.”
Taking over a program best known for losing an NCAA-record 80 consecutive games from 1989-98, Frazier led the Panthers to a perfect 7-0 conference mark, the SWAC West Division title and their first-ever berth in the SWAC championship game since the title contest was introduced in 1999.
Frazier is 36-27 at Prairie View and has gone 25-5 in the past three years. Prairie View completed its season with a thrilling, 30-24 SWAC title game victory over Alabama A&M. The Panthers hadn’t won a SWAC championship since 1964, and 2009 marked the team’s second consecutive 9-1 season.
“When we took over at Prairie View, if there were 119 teams, we were the 119th team in the country,” Frazier said.
In 2008, Prairie View also beat both Grambling and Southern in the same year for the first time in 35 seasons, and posted its first nine-win campaign since 1953, a feat they duplicated this season.
The 2009 season marks the first time the Panthers have had three consecutive winning years since legendary PVAM coach W.J. Nicks ran off nine straight such seasons from 1957-65.
Frazier also coached the Panthers to the No. 18 spot in the final regular season Sports Network poll, the highest ranking Prairie View has ever held. PVAM was ranked 25th last season, the first time the Panthers had ever made a poll appearance.
In the second-closest balloting in Robinson Award history, Frazier received 24 first-place votes out of the 125 ballots cast by a panel of sports information directors and select media who regularly cover FCS. He picked up 237 points to edge J.C. Harper of Stephen F. Austin by two points. (Full voting information is available at sportsnetwork.com)
Jerry Moore of Appalachian State won by one point over Craig Bohl of North Dakota State in 2006.
The Sports Network established the Eddie Robinson Award in 1987. Past recipients of this prestigious honor include current FCS coaches, two-time winner Mickey Matthews of James Madison, Northern Iowa skipper Mark Farley, New Hampshire’s Sean McDonnell, Villanova’s Andy Talley, Mike Ayers of Wofford and Elon’s Pete Lembo, when he won the coveted award with Lehigh.
Source: The Sports Network