South Florida football continued to see players recognized nationally on Tuesday when senior running back Nay’Quan Wright (Opa-Locka, Fla.) was named to the Doak Walker Award Watch List. The Doak Walker Award has been presented to the nation’s most outstanding college running back since 1990.
In his first season at USF after transferring from Florida, Wright started all 13 games and posted a career-best year with 797 yards and eight touchdowns rushing. He logged three 100-yard games on the year, including a career-best 186 yards on 26 carries and a touchdown in a win at UConn. He also caught eight passes for 23 yards on the year and scored a touchdown in the Bulls’ 45-0 rout of Syracuse in the Boca Raton Bowl.
Oklahoma State’s Ollie Gordon II won the Doak Walker Award in 2023.
USF returns 19 starters in 2024 (nine on offense, eight on defense, and two specialists) from a team that set 12 team and 16 individual program records while going 7-6 (a program-best six-game turnaround) and claiming a 45-0 Boca Raton Bowl victory over Syracuse in 2023.
The Bulls return record-setting starting quarterback Brown, 85 percent of their rushing yards, 84 percent of their receiving yards and four primary starters on the offensive line. On defense, USF returns nine of its top 11 tacklers led by Shuler, who logged a team-best 97 stops to go with 8.5 tackles for loss in 2023.
The Bulls open the season Aug. 31 vs. Bethune-Cookman in Raymond James Stadium before road games at Alabama (Sept. 7) and Southern Mississippi (Sept. 14) and a home clash with Miami (Sept. 21).
BULLS ON PRESEASON NATIONAL AWARD WATCH LISTS
Maxwell Award Byrum Brown, QB
Walter Camp Award Byrum Brown, QB
Outland Trophy Zane Herring, OG
Doak Walker Award Nay’Quan Wright, RB
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ABOUT USF FOOTBALL
The USF football program first took the field in 1997 and completed its 27th season in 2023 with a program-best six-game turnaround and Boca Raton Bowl victory under first-year head coach Alex Golesh. USF completed construction on a new $22 million Indoor Performance Facility in 2023 and a $340-million on-campus stadium and football operations center is slated for completion by 2027. The Bulls have posted 16 winning seasons, earned 16 All-America selections (including two consensus selections, the last coming in 2021), as well as 32 first-team all-conference honorees. USF has had 30 players selected in the NFL Draft and the Bulls have made 11 bowl game appearances (going 7-4), posting a program-record six straight appearances from 2005-2010 and making four straight bowl appearances from 2015-18. USF posted back-to-back 10-win seasons in 2016 and 2017, logging a program-record 11-2 mark in 2016, while finishing both seasons ranked in the Top 25. USF spent a program-record 20 straight weeks ranked in the Top 25 during the 2016 and 2017 campaigns and reached as high as No. 2 in the Associated Press rankings during the 2007 season.
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