Payton Award Watch

I readily admit that originally I was going to post about the injustice of Holy Cross JR QB Dominic Randolph still not being included in the Payton Award Watch list even after another stellar performance this week - 24 of 35 for 298 yards and 2 TD while rushing for another TD. As I've mentioned before - Randolph is 6th in the nation in 1-AA in passing yards and all but 2 of the players ahead of him have had an extra game.

However, when looking into the numbers to make the case for Randolph I became blown away by the numbers for Josh Johnson of the University of San Diego.

I know that the University of San Diego occupies a strange place where technically they are Division 1-AA but because of their schedule and non-scholarship status they really occupy a netherworld between 1-AA and Division 2. Say what you want about the program but the performance of starting QB Josh Johnson has been Bradyesque. In 5 games Johnson has completed 75% of his passes for 1,603 yards with 23 TD and ZERO interceptions. Yikes!

Payton Award Notes: Herb Donaldson, the RB from Western Illinois had a statement game against Missouri State rushing for 314 yards to go over 1,000 yards for the season with 4 games remaining... Not for nothing but Dominic Randolph is more deserving to be on the Payton Award watch list than Luke Drone the QB from Illinois State or Jerome Felton the RB from Furman to name just 2. I could name half the list... Mike McLeod the RB from Yale may be the front-runner for the award and I couldn't argue much about that. He can take over a game like perhaps no other runner in 1-AA...