Today senior safeties Darrick Forrest and James Wiggins, also with sophomore cornerback Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner were named to the watch list for the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award. Forest and Gardner are coming off of All-AAC seasons, while Wiggins is coming off of a season were he tore his ACL, but his previous season he was regarded as one of the best safeties in the country.
Congrats to all the Bearcats who have a chance to get recognition.
Per GoBearcats:
University of Cincinnati senior S Darrick Forrest (Columbus, Ohio/Walnut Ridge), sophomore CB Ahmad Gardner (Detroit, Michigan/Martin Luther King) and senior S James Wiggins (Miami, Florida/South Dade) were named to the watch list for the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award, the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame (OSHOF) and Jim Thorpe Association announced Monday.
UC was the only school with three players on the 49-person watch list made up of the nation’s best defensive backs representing all 10 NCAA FBS Conferences.
The Paycom Jim Thorpe Award, presented annually to the nation’s best defensive back in college football, is universally accepted as one of the nation’s top collegiate sports honors, and is presented to individual athletes based on performance on the field, athletic ability and character. The first Jim Thorpe Award was presented in 1986, and is named after legendary athlete and Oklahoma Native, Jim Thorpe.
Forrest, a 2019 First-Team All-American Athletic Conference selection, was one of the leaders of UC’s defense which led the American in scoring defense for the second-straight season and also forced an AAC best 25 turnovers. He led UC and ranked No. 7 in the league in tackles, averaging 7.6 per game and totaling 106 tackles and three interceptions in 14 starts. He finished with a career-high 16 tackles against UCF, reset his career high in tackles three times this year while finishing with seven or more stops in 10 games. He had a career-long, 38-yard interception return against UConn and was the AAC Defensive Player of the Week on Nov. 25, 2019.
Gardner is coming off a freshman campaign which saw him tabbed for three All-America teams (FWAA Freshman, PFF Third Team, The Athletic Freshman) and First-Team All-AAC honors. He erupted onto the scene in a huge way in a 27-24 upset win over UCF with a game-changing 16-yard interception return for a TD which gave UC a lead it would not relinquish at Nippert Stadium. Gardner added a second pick-6 at ECU, becoming the fifth UC player all time to have a pair of interception returns for a TD in the same season and first since UC corners coach Mike Mickens in 2007. He played in all 13 games and moved into the starting lineup against UConn and started the final six contests of the season.
Gardner finished the campaign with 31 tackles and 11 passes defended. According to PFF College, Gardner was one of the most frequently targeted DBs in 2019, ranking No. 15 in snaps/target. He finished as PFF College’s No. 6 overall cornerback and No. 7 with a 90.0 coverage grade, allowing no touchdowns and only a 39.4 passer rating against him.
Wiggins missed the 2019 season after suffering an injury two days before the Bearcats’ opening game against UCLA. The two-time nominee to Bruce Feldman’s College Football Freaks list was a Second-Team All-AAC honoree in 2018 after tallying 54 tackles and four game-changing interceptions while showing a big-play flair in the secondary. His first career interception was in the second quarter of the opener at UCLA, which led to a Warren TD, giving UC a lead it would not relinquish. Interception No. 2 came in the waning minutes against Ohio when he jumped a route on the goal line to end the Bobcats scoring threat and seal the win for UC. Wiggins’ third interception came in overtime at SMU, an 86-yard interception return for a TD which gave UC its first extra-period win since 2008. The 86-yard run back was the fourth longest in school history and longest since current UC CB coach Mike Mickens had a 79-yard INT return for a TD against USF in 2007. His final interception of the year came late in the fourth quarter of the Military Bowl when he tracked down and hauled in a Hokies pass to seal UC’s first bowl win since 2012.
A preseason watch list is compiled by the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame based on previous performance and preseason All-America lists. A screening committee, consisting of OSHOF members, monitor the watch list players and narrow the field to 10 to 15 semifinalists on the first Monday of November. This committee reconvenes on the Monday before Thanksgiving to select three award finalists. The three finalists are submitted to a national panel of over 250 sports writers, sportscasters, former players and coaches who vote to determine the winner of the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award.
UC returns 16 of 22 starters on the offensive and defensive side of the ball, 55 letterwinners and 13 of the team’s top 15 tacklers from the 2019 team which won 11 games, the AAC East Division title and the Birmingham Bowl. The Bearcats ended the season ranked No. 21 in all three major polls, won 11 games for only the fourth time in the program’s 132 seasons and had back-to-back 11-win seasons for only the second time in school history.
The Bearcats are currently set to open 2020 on Thursday, Sept. 3 against Austin Peay inside Nippert Stadium.
