AP Player of the Week: New Mexico’s Dampier has hand in 4 TDs in 1st win over Top 25 foe since 2003
AP Player of the Week: New Mexico’s Dampier has hand in 4 TDs in 1st win over Top 25 foe since 2003
The Associated Press national player of the week in college football for Week 12 of the season:
Devon Dampier, New Mexico
Dampier ran for three touchdowns, including the game-winner with 23 seconds left, and threw for another score in the Lobos’ 38-35 home win over then-No. 19 Washington State.
Dampier finished with 193 yards rushing and 174 yards passing as the Lobos beat a ranked team for the first time in 27 games since 2003.
Dampier, who had 143 of his rushing yards in the second half, went 33 yards to begin the Lobos’ comeback from a 28-14 halftime deficit. His 1-yard run for the go-ahead score ended an 11-play, 75-yard drive.
Dampier’s performance helped the Lobos improve to 5-6, their most wins since 2016.
Runner-up
South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers’ 15-yard touchdown pass with 15 seconds left gave the Gamecocks a 34-30 win over Missouri and punctuated a day when he threw for career highs of 353 yards and five TDs.
Sellers has 10 TD passes against just one interception over the last five games, and he became the first South Carolina quarterback to throw for five TDs in a game since Jake Bentley did it against Clemson in 2018.
Honorable mention
Arizona State WR Jordyn Tyson caught a career-high 12 passes for 176 yards and two touchdowns in a 24-14 win at Kansas State. It was the most receiving yards by an ASU player since 2015. ... Stanford WR Emmett Mosley caught 13 passes for 168 yards in a 38-35 win over Louisville. Mosley’s TD catches of 4 and 25 yards tied the game before the Cardinal won on Emmet Kenney’s 52-yard field goal as time expired. ... Clemson DE T.J. Parker recorded a career-high and school-record-tying four of the Tigers’ eight sacks in a 24-20 win over Pittsburgh. ... Clemson QB Cade Klubnik threw for 288 yards and two TDs, and his 50-yard touchdown run with 1:16 left gave the Tigers the go-ahead score. ... Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty rushed for 159 yards and three touchdowns and broke the program’s single-season rushing record in a 42-21 win at San Jose State. Jeanty has 1,893 rushing yards for the season.
Six stats
— Kansas’ 17-13 win at BYU gave the Jayhawks back-to-back victories over ranked opponents in consecutive weeks for the first time. KU beat Iowa State the week before.
— Georgia has won eight straight over Tennessee, all by double digits. It’s the longest winning streak for the Bulldogs in a series dating to 1899.
— Tulane won 21 American Athletic Conference games in its first eight years in the league; it has 22 wins in AAC play the last three seasons.
— Memphis’ Seth Henigan threw for four touchdowns against UAB to become the only active FBS player with four seasons with at least 20 TD passes at the same school.
— Illinois’s 38-16 victory over Michigan State gave the Illini a sixth home win for the first time since 2001.
— Nebraska is 0-8 in two years under Matt Rhule in games where a win would have made the Cornhuskers bowl-eligible. The Huskers haven’t been to a bowl since 2016, the longest drought in the Power Four.
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AP voters: Aaron Beard, Pat Graham, Gary B. Graves, Stephen Hawkins, Pete Iacobelli, Mark Long, John Marshall, Eric Olson, John Zenor.
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