Just when you think a postseason college football award couldn’t get any more ridiculous it goes and outdoes itself in a truly unimaginable fashion. One year after the two best tight ends in the country (Michael Mayer and Brock Bowers) weren’t even voted to be finalists for the John Mackey Award (best tight end), the award was given to the wrong person.
The 2022 Mackey Award went to Brock Bowers of Georgia. This post isn’t meant to rip Bowers in any capacity. The guy has been beast-like for the Bulldogs the last two seasons and has speed that tight ends simply aren’t supposed to have. He’s an incredible tight end, but he wasn’t the best in college football this season.
You can go into film breakdown and see that Michael Mayer does the things that don’t show up on a stat-sheet better than Bowers. Mayer is a far better blocker, better at making contested catches, and played the year with far less weaponry around him than Bowers did.
Yet the stats read out as follows:
Bowers: 52 receptions, 726 yards, 6 touchdowns
Mayer: 67 receptions, 809 yards, 9 touchdowns
As you can probably guess, Notre Dame players and fans weren’t too pleased with how the voting went. Here are how just some reacted to the blatant miss by Mackey Award voters.