Walter Camp Award watch list 2017: 5 favorites to win
By John Buhler
The Walter Camp Award is one of the most prestigious awards in college football, given out to the best player annually. Here are five favorites for 2017.
On Friday, the 2017 Walter Camp Award watch list was released with 40 of the best returning college football players in the game today. One of the preseason watch list members includes 2016 award winner in Louisville Cardinals quarterback Lamar Jackson.
The Camp Award is one of the most prestigious awards in all of college football. It goes annually to the best player in the game, regardless of the position he plays. While it does tend to go towards quarterbacks and running backs, the award will pivot and give it to even standouts on the defensive side of the ball like Notre Dame Fighting Irish linebacker Manti Te’o in 2012.
With the award watch list readily available for examination, here are five players that have a great chance to end up winning the illustrious college football award this December.
Josh Allen
Quarterback, Wyoming Cowboys
While all 10 major football conferences have at least one player making the Walter Camp Award preseason watch list, the likeliest candidate to end up winning it has to be Wyoming Cowboys junior quarterback Josh Allen. If he leaves school after 2017, he’s almost a lock to be a top-10 pick.
Allen has great playmaking ability for the Cowboys. He completed 56.0 percent of his passes last fall for 3,203 yards, 28 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. On the ground, Allen rushed for 523 yards on 142 carries for seven touchdowns. He even had a four-yard touchdown reception as a sophomore for Wyoming.
NFL scouts know that Allen’s skill set will translate to the next level. It’s cool to see him carry a strong Wyoming team into the New Year’s Six discussion out of the Group of 5. While the Western Michigan Broncos got to play in the Cotton Bowl as the MAC Champion, Wyoming was right there in the mix for the Group of 5 bid out of the Mountain West.
From the looks of it, the Mountain West will be stacked in 2017. Teams like Wyoming, the Boise State Broncos and the San Diego State Aztecs are more than capable of winning the conference championship. If Allen can take Wyoming football to new heights in his junior year, he’ll be up for many major college football awards, including the Camp Award.