DALLAS – WKU senior QB Austin Reed was selected to the Walter Camp Award Watch List, presented to the nation’s player of the year, the Walter Camp Football Foundation announced Friday.
Reed, the 2023 CUSA Preseason Offensive Player of the Year and member of the Maxwell Award, Davey O’Brien Award and Wuerffel Trophy preseason watch lists, is coming off a 2022 season in which he was the leading passer in all of college football with 4,746 yards. The Florida native also tossed 40 touchdowns, while rushing for an additional eight. Reed’s biggest performance of the season came in WKU’s win over South Alabama in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl when he threw for 497 yards and four touchdowns, which led to him being named the bowl game’s MVP. Reed was also named Conference USA’s Newcomer of the Year at the end of the season.
“We are proud to continue the great work of Walter Camp and recognize the best college football players in the nation,” Foundation president Tony Mortali said. “This watch list is a great start to what is shaping up to be another exciting year of college football.”
The 2023 watch list will be narrowed to 10 semi-finalists in mid-November. The 2023 Walter Camp Player of the Year recipient, which is voted on by the 133 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision head coaches and sports information directors, will be announced on ESPN’s College Football Awards Show in December. The winner will then receive his trophy at the Foundation’s 57th annual national awards banquet in New Haven, Conn in early 2024.
Please note: Appearing on the preseason Watch List is not a requirement for a player to win the Walter Camp award or be named to the All-America team.
Walter Camp, “The Father of American football,” first selected an All-America team in 1889. Camp – a former Yale University athlete and football coach – is also credited with developing play from scrimmage, set plays, the numerical assessment of goals and tries and the restriction of play to eleven men per side. The Walter Camp Football Foundation (www.waltercamp.org) – a New Haven-based all-volunteer group – was founded in 1967 to perpetuate the ideals of Camp and to continue the tradition of selecting annually an All-America team.
The Walter Camp Football Foundation is a member of the National College Football Awards Association. Founded in 1997, the NCFAA includes college football’s most prestigious awards and its 24 awards have honored more than 900 recipients dating back to 1935. This season, 12 NCFAA awards will honor national players of the week each Tuesday. Sixteen NCFAA members are unveiling preseason watch lists over a two-week period as the association spearheads a coordinated effort to promote each award’s preseason candidates. For more information about the NCFAA and its award programs, visit the redesigned NCFAA.org or follow on Twitter at @NCFAA.
-ConferenceUSA.com-
