TCU Football: Avila, Duggan Announced as Semifinalists/Finalists For Post-Season Awards

Avila, Davis, and Horton also accept invites to the Senior Bowl.

Many TCU Horned Frog football team members were placed on pre-season watch lists for several post-season honors. Fourteen Frogs were named to 18 watch lists for 28 nominations – the most in the Big 12.

Now, with just weeks remaining in the season, several of these awards and honors are starting to narrow their lists based on performances throughout the season.

TCU offensive guard Steve Avila has been named a semifinalist for the Outland Trophy, presented annually to the nation’s best interior lineman on offense or defense.

TCU quarterback Max Duggan has been named as a semifinalist or finalist to several awards:

• Semifinalist – Maxwell Award – presented to the Collegiate Player of the Year
• Finalist – Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award – presented to the top senior or upperclassman quarterback based on performance on and off the field
• Semifinalist – Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award – presented to the nation’s best quarterback (and named after TCU’s 1938 Heisman Trophy winner who guided the Horned Frogs to a national championship that season)
• Semifinalist – Walter Camp Football Foundation’s Player of the Year Award – the nation’s fourth-oldest college football award.

Avila, voted by his teammates as a captain this year, was a midseason All-American by the Associated Press and ESPN. He has started all ten games at left guard after making 11 starts at center last season. He is instrumental in TCU’s ranking among the national leaders in all major offensive categories, including first with 15 plays of 50-plus yards and nine plays of at least 60 yards. TCU also tops all Power 5 schools with 13 touchdowns of at least 50 yards and is one of two teams nationally to average at least 210.0 yards per game rushing and 270.0 passing.

Steve Avila / TCU Athletics

A graduate student, Avila has 18 knockdowns through 10 games and a team-best average grade of 92. Pro Football Focus rates him with the second-highest pass blocking grade in the Big 12 for linemen with 500-plus snaps.

Duggan has led the No. 4 Horned Frogs to a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game. He is sixth in the nation in passing efficiency (172.6) while leading all Power 5 quarterbacks with 15 touchdown passes of at least 20 yards. He has thrown for 25 touchdowns on the year with just two interceptions. He has accounted for at least three touchdowns in seven of nine starts.

Max Duggan / © Scott Wachter-USA TODAY Sports

In addition to passing efficiency and touchdown passes, Duggan tops the Big 12 in yards per completion (14.1) and yards per attempt (9.3). He is second in passing yards (2,531) and yards per game (253.1). His 65.9 completion percentage is a career high, while his 0.73 interception percentage is on pace to shatter TCU's season record.

With a 73-yard touchdown pass to Taye Barber and a 67-yard scoring run just 1:18 apart against Oklahoma, Duggan became just the second player nationally in the last 15 years and first since Lamar Jackson in 2016 to have a touchdown pass and touchdown run of at least 60 yards in the first quarter of a game.

In addition, Avila, along with wide receiver Derius Davis and defensive lineman Dylan Horton have all accepted invitations to play in the 2023 Reese’s Senior Bowl, which will be played in Mobile, Alabama, on February 4.

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