Jayhawks Neal and Roadrunners Robinson Earn National Honors

Contributing Sports Writer

 

 

Jimmori Robinson of UTSA and Devin Neal of Kansas were named the Walter Camp Football Foundation Football Bowl Subdivision National Offensive and Defensive Players of the Week for games ending November 23. The Award is presented  by The Heights Group at Morgan Stanley. 

Neal rushed for 207 yards (on 37 carries) and scored three touchdowns, while adding 80 yards and another touchdown on four receptions in Kansas’ 37-21 victory over No. 16 Colorado. The 207 rushing yards is the second-highest total for Neal in his career. In the game, Neal surpassed the 1,000-yard rushing milestone for the 2024 season, becoming the first player in Kansas football history record three 1,000-yard seasons.

Neal is also Kansas’ all-time leader in rushing yards (4,210), rushing touchdowns (48) and scrimmage touchdowns (52). Nationally- He is tied for the lead among active FBS players with 48 career rushing touchdowns, which matches the mark of Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty. Neal is No. 2 among active power-four running backs for career rushing yards, trailing only Tahj Brooks of Texas Tech.

The senior running back is the 2nd Jayhawk player since 2004 that has earned the Walter Camp National FBS Player of Week honors (Sept. 18, 2022 – QB Jalon Daniels)

 Robinson helped lift UTSA to a 51-27 victory over Temple, registering a school-record 5.5 tackles for loss, including a program-record-tying four quarterback sacks. For the game, he posted seven tackles and added three quarterback hurries to help the Roadrunners limit the Owls to 289 yards, including 70 rushing. Robinson’s 5.5 TFLs are the most by an FBS player this season.

The Alexandria, Virginia native is the first a UTSA player has earned Walter Camp National Player of the Week honors. He also was named the American Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Week.

This is the 21st year that the Walter Camp Football Foundation will honor one offensive and one defensive player as its national Football Bowl Subdivision player of the week during the regular season. It is the nation’s longest running Player of Week award.

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) – 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 Foundation is a member of the National College Football Awards Association (NCFAA). Founded in 1997, the NCFAA includes college football’s most prestigious awards and its 24 awards have honored more than 900 recipients dating back to 1935. This season, 13 NCFAA awards will honor national players of the week each Tuesday. 

THE HEIGHTS GROUP is led by brothers Ryan Heald and Brooke Heald, both of whom are former collegiate student-athletes and have earned the rare distinction of Morgan Stanley Global Sports and Entertainment Director, a designation earned by fewer than 1% of Morgan Stanley Financial Advisors. Ryan is a NFLPA Registered Institutional Player Financial Advisor with more than 20 years of experience working with top performers in sports and entertainment. The Heights Group started working with many talented clients and their families before they signed their first pro contracts, helping them understand, and prepare for, the complex financial challenges they would face as their careers progressed. The Heights Group at Morgan Stanley serves as their go-to advisors, always ready to help them sort through any financial issue and make informed decisions while pursuing their most important life goals.