The Confidential

ACC Football “Post-Season” Awards Released

With a conference championship game yet to play, the ACC went ahead and released its post-season awards anyway.  The Confidential is always a bit surprised that awards are issued before the relevant period is over.  Is the ACC suggesting that this Saturday’s HUGE game doesn’t matter?  Of course not.

In any event, Mike London was named the ACC Coach of the Year.  In his first season, he improved Virginia from 4-8 to 8-4.  He dominated the voting, receiving 31 votes, significantly more than runners-up Frank Beamer (3) and Dabo Swinnney (2).

The ACC player of the yearwas Virginia Tech running back David Wilson.  The junior has TEN 100-yard rushing games already.  In fact, he also was named the ACC offensive player of the year.  In the player of the year voting, he earned twice as many votes (18) as the nearest vote-getter, Luke Kuechly of Boston College (9).  Also receiving votes were a Clemson duo, Sammy Watkins (8) and Tajh Boyd (7).  The remaining three votes were cast for Wilson’s teammate, quarter back Logan Thomas.

In the offensive player of the year voting, Wilson received 26 votes.  Boyd and Watkins finished with 9 and 8 votes respectively.  Oddly, although Thomas had three votes for ACC player of the year, only two votes were cast for him as offensive player of the year.  Apparently, some voter though he was the best player in the league, but not the best offensive player in the league.  Yep, that makes as little sense as it sounds.

On the defensive side, Kuechly was named the ACC defensive player of the year.   The Boston College linebacker’s numbers are mind-boggling:

Kuechly averaged 15.92 tackles per game for Boston College, which won three of its final five games to finish at 4-8. The figure is almost certain to set an NCAA single-season record. In order to catch Kuechly, his nearest competitor, Utah State linebacker Bobby Wagner, will need to make 73 stops over his final two contests. Kuechly’s total of 191 tackles fell two short of the NCAA mark, and his career achievements are equally compelling. In only three seasons, he has been credited with 532 stops; that’s the second-highest total by an FBS player since the NCAA began compiling individual tackling statistics in 2000.

He has done that in only three seasons and has another year of eligibility remaining.

Not surprisingly, he picked up 30 of the 45 votes.   The remaining 15 votes were split between North Carolina cornerback David Amerson  (14) and Duke safety Matt Daniels (1).