Ohio's Rourke Named To 2019 Walter Camp Award Watch List
Ohio's Rourke Named To 2019 Walter Camp Player of the Year Watch List
New Haven, Conn. – The Walter Camp Football Foundation has announced the names of forty “players to watch” for its 2019 Player of the Year award, the nation’s fourth-oldest individual college football accolade. Representing the MAC is senior quarterback Nathan Rourke of Ohio.
Rourke, a native of Oakville, Ontario, Canada, is a two-time All-MAC Second Team selection, has played in 26 games with 24 starts over the last two seasons with the Bobcats and owns a 17-7 record as a starting quarterback. Rourke is ranked first in program history with a career passing efficiency rating of 144.3, second with 40 career passing touchdowns, second with 178.3 career passing yards per game, fourth with 4,637 career passing yards, fourth with a career completion percentage of 57.4 percent (325-of-566), fifth with 14.3 career yards per completion and seventh with 325 career completions. He has also tallied 36 career rushing touchdowns, which ranks as the third-most in program history, and has rushed for more touchdowns than any other quarterback in NCAA FBS over the last two seasons.
Rourke has been responsible for 77 career touchdowns -- the second-most in program history and the third-most in NCAA FBS over the last two seasons. He ranks third in program history with 37 career touchdowns scored and sixth with 222 career points scored. Rourke is a two-time winner of the Joe Cornish Trophy, which is awarded annually to the most outstanding Canadian player in NCAA Football. He has helped guide Ohio to a pair of bowl victories, with the Bobcats topping UAB, 41-6, in the 2017 Bahamas Bowl and shutting out San Diego State, 27-0, in the 2018 DXL Frisco Bowl.
There are 30 offensive players (16 quarterbacks, seven running backs and seven receivers/tight ends) on the preseason watch list along with 10 from the defensive side of the ball. In all, 35 schools and 11 conferences (including independents) are represented on the list.
The watch list will be narrowed to 10 semi-finalists in mid-November. The 2019 Walter Camp Player of the Year recipient, which is voted on by the 130 NCAA Bowl Subdivision head coaches and sports information directors, will be announced live on ESPN on Thursday, December 12. The winner will then receive his trophy at the Foundation’s 53rd annual national awards banquet on January 18, 2020 in New Haven, Conn.
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; @WalterCampFF) – 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 Foundation is a member of the National College Football Awards Association (NCFAA), which encompasses the most prestigious awards in college football. Founded in 1997, the NCFAA and its 25 awards now boast over 800 recipients, dating to 1935. Visit www.ncfaa.org to learn more about the association.
