The individual accolades keep coming in for Arizona Wildcats linebacker Scooby Wright III. After being named Walter Camp Foundation Defensive Player of the Week for the second time this season, Wright has made the cut as one of the five finalists for the Walter Camp Award, given to the nation's best player.
The Pac-12 Championship Game on Friday will feature two of the five players on the list. Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota is also a finalist. They are joined by TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin, Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon, and Alabama wide receiver Amari Cooper. The award will be presented on Thursday, December 11th sometime during the 4 P.M. MST Sportscenter on ESPN.
Wright currently leads the nation in tackles for loss (27) and forced fumbles (6) this season. In eight of the twelve games, Wright has put up double-digit tackles, and leads the team with 139 this season, good for an average of 11.6 tackles per game. This puts him in the top-five in those three categories in the FBS. No other player is even in the top-25 in all three of those categories.
This comes a day after the sophomore linebacker was named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, and was named to first-team all-conference. He's also a finalist for the Nagurski, Lombardi, and Bednarik trophies. Somehow, he is not up for the Butkus award, which is given to the best linebacker.
With all of these awards ceremonies coming up after Friday's game, Scooby's travel schedule is kind of crazy.
Next week after P12 title game, Scooby Wright will go Tucson>Charlotte>Houston>Orlando on the awards circuit. #nagurski #lombardi #bednarik
— Daniel Berk (@DSBerk) November 30, 2014
The Walter Camp winner goes to Yale on January 17th for the awards banquet.
In typical Scooby form, he did not really want to talk about all the individual stuff this week.
"It feels great, but I'm focused on Friday," Wright said on Tuesday. "It's a great honor, but I'm a team guy."
How much does Scooby Wright hate doing all these interviews and talking about himself after winning DPOY? "More than you can imagine."
— Daniel Berk (@DSBerk) December 3, 2014
It's crazy that Arizona football is in a place where it has a defensive player being a finalist for national player of the year, and that a potential College Football Playoff berth could be on the line Friday. What is happening here?