Tag: John Mackey Award

Pro Football Focus selects one Notre Dame player to win national award

It’s exactly who you think it is

Although we are at the unofficial midpoint of the college football season, many outlets have come out with their midseason All-American teams, award winners and front-runner for the four College Football Playoff spots.

Pro Football Focus released their midseason awards and even though I don’t agree with some of them (Alabama’s [autotag]Bryce Young[/autotag] being the Heisman front runner), there is one we completely agree on, their midseason John Mackey Award winner, Notre Dame tight end [autotag]Michael Mayer[/autotag].

The junior has been phenomenal this season, he’s been the best player on the Irish’s team this season. Through six games this season, Mayer has caught 38 balls for 411 yards and 5 touchdowns. Those are All-American type numbers.

Mayer has been the exception on the Irish offense this fall, in fact, he’s been exceptional. The one constant figure for Notre Dame all season should get recognized as one of the best and this, although not official, is a step towards potentially hoisting some hardware for the star Irish tight end after the season ends.

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Johnny Lanagan named to Mackey Award Watch List

Johnny Langan is on the watchlist for a national award.

As the 2023 college football season draws closer, there is optimism in Piscataway about what this season will bring. The Rutgers roster is full of veterans, and the schedule has a few winnable games. One player that will be key to their success is Johnny Lanagan, who was named to the Mackey Award watch list on Friday.

During the 2022 campaign, Lanagan hauled in 31 receptions for 296 yards. He had at least one catch in every game and found the endzone once. The New Jersey native also made an impact on the ground with 139 yards on 31 carries.

This upcoming season will mark Lanagan’s sixth in college football. In 45 games, he has 20 touchdowns and 483 receiving yards. The talented tight end can also play quarterback if needed. Regardless of the situation, Lanagan has made an impact whenever he is on the field since making his Rutgers debut in 2019.

While Lanagan will focus on putting Rutgers in a position to win, he will also be looking to show why he has received Mackey Award recognition. Each year the award is given to the best tight end in college football. Past winners include Kyle Pitts, T.J. Hockenson, and Mark Andrews.

To join that talented group Lanagan will have to take his game to another level. During the 2022 campaign, he set career highs in receptions with 31 and receiving yards per game with 24.7. Even matching those numbers would be huge for a Rutgers team not known for its offense.

Although the Scarlet Knights tight end already had plenty of motivation for the 2023 campaign, Friday’s news adds more fuel to the fire.

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Penn State TE Theo Johnson named to John Mackey Award watch list

Theo Johnson hopes to become Penn State’s first John Mackey Award winner.

While most of the attention was placed on the massive realignment news flowing around the Big Ten and Big 12, college football’s award season continued to roll along on Friday with the release of the watch list for this year’s John Mackey Award. The top tight end award’s watch list included Penn State’s [autotag]Theo Johnson[/autotag] to get the season started.

This is the second year in a row Johnson has been named to the Mackey award watch list. Johnson is coming off a 2022 season with 20 receptions for 328 yards and four touchdowns in 11 games played. Johnson has 43 career receptions for 597 yards and five touchdowns during his three years at Penn State. He is expected to be Penn State’s top tight end option this season following the departure of Brenton Strange to the NFL.

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The John Mackey Award was first presented in 2000 to Purdue’s Tim Stratton. Penn State does not have a Mackey Award winner, and Iowa’s T.J. Hockenson was the last Big Ten player to take home the award in 2018. Five Big Ten players have won the award.

Last year’s Mackey Award winner was Brock Bowers of Georgia. Other notable winners of the award include Kyle Pitts of Florida (2020), Kellen Winslow II of Miami (2003), and Dallas Clark of Iowa (2002).

You can view the full watch list for the John Mackey Award in the official press release from the award’s official website.

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ChatGPT’s top 10 Notre Dame tight ends not including Michael Mayer

Remember any of these guys?

ChatGPT is a useful AI writing tool, but it’s not without its flaws. You have to be specific in what you want when you enter a prompt. Otherwise, it will assume things that aren’t true, and you have to enter the prompt again to account for the things that weren’t correct initially. While it doesn’t take much time to edit and regenerate prompts, it still can be mildly frustrating.

Another problem, at least at the moment, is that it only accounts for information through September 2021. Since then, [autotag]Michael Mayer[/autotag] became arguably the best tight end in Notre Dame history. So when we asked ChatGPT to generate what it believes is the program’s top 10 tight ends, Mayer wasn’t included.

The point of this particular introduction is to explain why Mayer isn’t on this list. But hopefully, you have fond memories of the 10 names ChatGPT did generate. Without further adieu, here it is, edited for accuracy:

Notre Dame tight end Michael Mayer finishes as a Pro Football Focus top 10 player of 2022

No surprise from us

The [autotag]Notre Dame[/autotag] football team is going to miss tight end [autotag]Michael Mayer[/autotag]. A lot.

It wasn’t surprising that Mayer opted to move on to the NFL, losing out on the [autotag]John Mackey Award[/autotag] was. Georgia’s [autotag]Brock Bowers[/autotag] won the award for the nations best tight end, but if the voters looked at Pro Football Focus’ top 101 collegiate players from this past year, they might have been swayed to vote differently.

Mayer ended up as the 9th overall player, four spots ahead of Bowers, and the only tight end to rank inside the top 10. After catching 67 receptions for 809 yards and 9 scores, the soon-to-be NFL star delivered on the hype.

We don’t know where Mayer will be playing football next, but wherever he ends up, that team will be very happy with his skill set.

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Texas TE Ja’Tavion Sanders makes preseason watch list for John Mackey Award

The award is given annually to the nation’s top tight end.

Texas tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders is expected to burst onto the college football scene this season. Continue reading “Texas TE Ja’Tavion Sanders makes preseason watch list for John Mackey Award”

Jeremy Ruckert named to preseason Mackey Award watch list

Another Buckeye on a preseason award watch list. Do you expect Ruckert to have a major breakout campaign in 2021?

We’ve got another announcement of a preseason award watch list and that must mean we’ve got another Ohio State player appearing.

The John Mackey Award announced its 2021 preseason watch list on Friday and tight end Jeremy Ruckert is among the 56 names honored. The Mackey has been around since 2000 and recognizes college football’s best tight end annually. No Ohio State player has ever won the award.

Ruckert is entering his senior season, having put off his NFL dreams for one more year, and is expected to be the unquestioned No. 1 tight end in Ohio State’s offensive attack this season. He shared time with Luke Farrell over the last three seasons but has continually improved his big-play ability down the field.

In his career thus far, Ruckert has caught 28 passes for 36 yards and nine touchdowns. He was a key player in the win against Clemson in the Sugar Bowl, catching three passes for 55 yards and two scores.

We can’t wait to see what Ruckert can do this fall as the main target at tight end.

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Kyle Pitts wins Mackey Award as nation’s top tight end

Florida’s Kyle Pitts on Thursday night won the John Mackey Award, which recognizes the best tight end in college football.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by the Gainesville Sun and has been republished in its entirety below. 

Florida’s Kyle Pitts on Thursday night won the John Mackey Award, which recognizes the best tight end in college football.

Pitts is the second tight end in school history to win the Mackey Award, joining Aaron Hernandez who won the award in 2009. Ben Troupe (2003) and Jake McGee (2015) were named finalists in their respective years.

Earlier Thursday, Pitts was named a Walter Camp First Team All-American, the Walter Camp Football Foundation announced.

Pitts becomes the first unanimous first-team All-American since Vernon Hargreaves III in 2015. Both Pitts and Hargreaves were named to the first teams of the AFCA, AP, FWAA, Sporting News and Walter Camp All-America teams.

His dominant performance this season also landed him a spot as a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award (nation’s best pass catcher). But, as expected, Alabama’s DeVonta Smith won the Biletnikoff Award.

Pitts quickly became the best tight end and one of the top pass catchers in the country this season with 43 receptions, 770 yards and 12 touchdowns.

Pitts’ 12 receiving touchdowns this season were the second-highest total by a tight end in Southeastern Conference history. Vanderbilt’s Allama Matthews (14 in 1982) holds the SEC record. His 770 yards this year ties Kirk Kirkpatrick (1990) for second on Florida’s single-season record list for receiving yards by a tight end.

The junior is the first tight end in Gators history and the eighth FBS tight end in the last five years (including 2020) with three games of 100-plus receiving yards in the same season.

Alabama’s Mac Jones won the Davey O’Brien Award over Florida’s Kyle Trask and Trevor Lawrence of Clemson.

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Florida tight end Pitts the favorite to win this postseason award

Kyle Pitts is one of 3 finalists for both the John Mackey Award for the best tight end and the Biletnikoff Award for the top pass-catcher.

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Florida tight end Kyle Pitts has the opportunity to bring home some hardware tonight. The standout player and likely first-round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft is nominated for two awards tonight at the Home Depot College Football Awards.

Pitts is one of three finalists for both the John Mackey award, given to the nation’s best tight end, and the Biletnikoff Award, which is given to the top pass-catcher in the country. Pitts is the first player to be nominated for both since Chase Coffman, the 2008 winner of the Mackey.

Though Heisman Trophy-winning receiver Devonta Smith is all but guaranteed to take home the Biletnikoff, ESPN’s Mark Schlabach thinks Pitts is the favorite to win the Mackey over finalists Charlie Kolar from Iowa State and Jalen Wydermyer from Texas A&M. Here’s what he said about this year’s race for the Mackey.

Who should win: Pitts. He was a matchup nightmare for any defense he faced because of his height, speed and length. He was PFF’s top-rated tight end with a 96.2 overall grade, finishing with 43 receptions for 770 yards with 12 touchdowns. He didn’t have a drop in 65 targets and 39 of his catches were for first downs.

Who will win: Pitts

Pitts is the first Florida finalist for the Mackey since Aaron Hernandez in 2009, who won the award.

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Wisconsin TE Jake Ferguson leads the nation in this stat according to PFF

On Monday morning, Pro Football Focus tweeted out a statistic ranking the most career broken tackles by returning tight ends in college football. Jake Ferguson led college football in this stat with 17 career broken tackles.

On Monday morning, Pro Football Focus tweeted out a statistic ranking the most career broken tackles by returning tight ends in college football. Jake Ferguson led college football in this stat with 17 career broken tackles.

The others that made the list are Matt Bushman from BYU with 15, Peyton Hendershot from Indiana with 14,  Brevin Jordan from Miami with 12, and lastly Pat Freiermuth from Penn State with 10.

Jake Ferguson has become a security blanket for Wisconsin quarterbacks in his time with the Badgers and has racked up 63 receptions for 804 yards and six touchdowns in his two-year career.

Ferguson has mainly been used as a blocking tight end for Jonathan Taylor thus far, but expectations for the junior tight end are high because of his naming to the watch list for the John Mackey Award. Jake Ferguson will have to step up this season to carry the offense for Wisconsin that will be losing its leading receiver and rusher from last year.

If you would like to read more about Jake Ferguson, and his naming to the John Mackey Award Watch List, click here.