Vad Lee Wins 2015 CAA Offensive Player of the Year
CAA Football announced its award winners and All CAA teams today. JMU QB Vad Lee won the Offensive Player of the Year. Fans of other CAA teams (cough, Richmond) might cry foul because Lee missed 3 games due to injury. They might have a point.
With 3 fewer games under his belt, voters were forced to estimate how productive Lee would have been over the final 3 games, and then compare those estimates against the rest of the league’s full season results. Otherwise, they’d be forced to simply go off the fact that Lee only had 1 more yard of total offense than his closest competitor. That’s right, despite missing over a quarter of the season, Lee had more total yards than any other player in the CAA. He averaged 375 yards of total offense per game. That’s 102 more than anyone else. Game set match. Lee was as deserving as any CAA player in recent memory. His injury also leaves us with one particularly painful “what if?” scenario, but that’s a discussion for another day.
Lee was also recognized as first team All CAA. Joining him on the first team was WR Brandon Ravenel and OL Mitch Kirsch. On the defensive side, DL Andrew Ankrah and CB Taylor Reynolds were selected to the All CAA first team. Cardon Johnson, Deane Cheatham, Alex Mosley (ed. note: Saturday’s jumbotron video of Mosley stating that the first time he walked into D-Hall was his favorite JMU memory, immediately became one of my favorite JMU memories from the 2015 season) and Raven Greene earned second team honors. Punter Gunnar Kane earned a third team nod. All in all, a pretty good haul for the Dukes.
you guys sure love football
… and Gage Steele? … 🙁
This is going to be off topic since there are no basketball postings, but Satkus is a relic from when the team was a slow half court offense. The guy lacks the athleticism needed ro deserve the minutes he’s getting. I’d rather see Lukic out there.
I didn’t think Gage did enough week in, week out. Cherry, Howard, and Rhodes– from what I saw + measurables– are great choices at LB. Even down to third team, I could understand why Gage got shut out. Reynolds is probably first team due to the last couple of games; frankly, it’s a little hard to see anyone from this defense on the first team, but propers to him and Ankrah.
But let’s all try to take in, once again, what VL2 did this year. Mercy. If not for him, I say we’re an at-large pick at best. We can “blame” him for Gameday, a high seed, a favorable draw, and pretty good line of sight to the national semis. I loved what Rodney Landers did for this team, but do we have any question about VL2 having the greatest football season ever wearing purple? Plus, apparently, a great sideline leader even today.
We’ll turn our attention to hoops soon. We just have a lot going on outside of the blog and really can’t seem to find the time to give hoops the attention it deserves right now.
Vad Lee made looking forward to Saturdays an event. I have rarely enjoyed watching an athlete in any sport as much as I have Vad over the last 2 years. Not only was he exciting to watch, but you were never out of a game when he was on the field. I am so glad the CAA recognized this great youn man for his achievements.
Go Dukes!!
@jmuparent
Steele wasn’t even the best linebacker on his own team. Kyre Hawkins made more plays and Steele wasn’t even on the field as much during the latter part of the season.