Louisville’s Jackson Named College Football’s National Player of the Year

Chris PersonDecember 9, 2016

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – University of Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson was presented the 2016 Maxwell College Player of the Year award Thursday night during The Home Depot College Football Awards Show on ESPN.

Jackson, who received the 80th edition of the honor at the College Football Hall of Fame, guided the nation’s top scoring offense at Louisville. He finished the regular season holding ACC and school records with 51 touchdowns responsible for (30 passing, 21 rushing), rushing yards by a quarterback with 1,538, and rushing touchdowns by a quarterback with 21. He tied an ACC mark with eight touchdowns in the season-opening win over Charlotte, including matching a school mark with six touchdown passes.

The Pompano Beach, Fla., native, a Heisman finalist, was named the 2016 Walter Camp Player of the Year and the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Player of the Year and Offensive Player of the Year – in a vote by the league’s 14 head coaches – earlier in the day.

Jackson has shattered Louisville’s single-season record for rushing yards in a season, and his eight 100-yard rushing games also broke a school mark.

The 6-foot-3 signal caller has passed for 3,390 yards and 30 touchdowns and is two scores shy of breaking Teddy Bridgewater’s single-season mark. Jackson totaled a pair of 400-yard passing games this season, including a career-best 417 yards in a win on the road at Marshall on Sept. 24, and 411 yards in a victory at Syracuse on Sept. 9.

He amassed an ACC-record 610 total yards in a win over Syracuse, a game in which he came within one rushing yard of becoming the first player in FBS history to run for 400 yards and pass for 200 yards in the same game.

The Cardinals return to action on Dec. 31 in the 2016 Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl against LSU in Orlando, Fla., at 11 a.m.