After his four touchdown and zero interception performance against Wake Forest this weekend Maryland quarterback Danny O'Brien has been named the ACC's Rookie of the year for the third time this season, according to Inside MD Sports.
His three weekly awards are by far the most in the conference, which means O'Brien is the presumptive favorite to be names the ACC Rookie of the Year after the season. In a season where Maryland has made some pretty impressive strides in the right direction, that might be the most important moving forward. After the jump we'll look at some of the other players who have won the award this season, and see if O'Brien really has a shot at this thing.
Let me just say at the top that his is going to be a very informal study. We're going to look at the other players who have won rookie of the week so far this season, and see if any of them have a legit shot at dethroning O'Brien. We rank them in order from least likely to most likely to win the award, at least in my opinion.
- Florida State linebacker Christian Jones. He had a great game to win the weekly award, but he hasn't really played that well since then. And it's hard to win awards like this from the defensive side of the ball.
- Clemson Wide Receiver DeAndre Hopkins. Again, he really only had just the one big game. His 18 receptions for less then two hundred yards and one touchdown aren't all that impressive over nine weeks.
- Miami running back Lamar Miller. Only has 252 total rushing yards this season and two touchdowns.
- Wake Forest quarterback Tanner Price. Just under a 2:1 touchdown to interception ratio isn't going to get it done. His performance in a head to head match up against O'Brien this weekend doesn't bode well for his chances.
- NC State running back Mustafa Greene. His candidacy might get a little bump from their big win over Florida State this weekend, but he isn't even the most impressive rookie running back in this league, that distinction belongs to ...
- Wake Forest running back Josh Harris. He's the only real play maker on the Wake Forest team, so he'll have a great chance to add to his 457 rushing yards and five touchdowns. But again, he didn't look that good in a head to head match up with Maryland, and the voters might take that into account.
At this point in the season O'Brien has 13 passing touchdowns and just three interceptions, and don't forget the touchdown he caught as well. At this point, I think he is the obvious favorite to win this award, and Patrick Stevens from d1scourse agrees with me.
Like I said earlier, this would be a great sign for the Maryland program that would be moving forward with O'Brien at the helm. Let's hope he can build on his good play and lock this award down.