Mountain West Football: Carson Strong, Nick Starkel Named to Davey O’Brien Award Watch List
The Nevada Wolf Pack and San Jose State Spartans are represented among college football’s top quarterbacks for 2021.
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Is there a chance?
Watch list season rolls on with the release of the Davey O’Brien Award’s quarterbacks to watch. Given annually to the nation’s best signal-caller, just two players from the Mountain West are among the 30 that could bring home one of college football’s most prestigious honors.
Nevada quarterback Carson Strong, who appeared on the Maxwell Award watch list yesterday, made the cut after catapulting himself into the conversation about the best quarterbacks in the country last fall. The Wolf Pack went 7-2 thanks in large part to Strong’s Air Raid prowess: Only USC’s Kedon Slovis and UCF’s Dillon Gabriel averaged more than his 39.4 pass attempts per game, and Kent State’s Dustin Crum was the only qualifying Group of 5 quarterback with a higher completion rate than Strong’s 70.1%. In all, Strong threw for 2,858 yards and 27 touchdowns against just four interceptions.
San Jose State’s Nick Starkel appeared the Maxwell list yesterday, as well. Last season, he had the unenviable job of replacing the Mountain West’s 2019 Offensive Player of the Year but passed that test with flying colors. He completed 64.2% of his 254 pass attempts for 2,174 yards and 17 touchdowns, one of the biggest reasons why the Spartans were able to claim their first conference title since 1991.
Last year’s Davey O’Brien Award winner was Alabama’s Mac Jones.
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