The Maxwell Award

Newton, a junior quarterback from College Park, Georgia, led No. 1 Auburn to a 13- 0 regular season record and a win against No. 2 Oregon in the Bowl Series Championship game. The 6-6 signal caller's season was nothing short of astounding. He led the FBS with a passer rating of 188.16, completing over 67% of his passes for 2,589 yards and 28 touchdowns against just six interceptions.

Colt, a senior, has led the Longhorns to a 12-0 record and a Big XII Championship this season. Texas will face off with the Alabama Crimson Tide in this year’s CITI BCS Championship game which will be held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on January 7, 2010.

When Mack Brown took over as head football coach at the University of Texas this past season, he was faced with a dilemma. He did not like long hair. He had a policy forbidding it on every team he coached. But at Texas, he inherited a running back named Ricky Williams, who wore his hair in dreadlocks. What's a coach to do? Mack Brown looked at the 6'1", 230 pound Williams, watched him run and decided those dreadlocks weren't so bad, after all. "I was thinking about wearing braids myself after about the fourth game," Brown said. "Ricky is the best player I've ever seen.

Ron Dayne is an old-fashioned kind of football player. He isn't flashy, he doesn't say much, he isn't the type to dance in the endzone. He just plays the game.

But that's OK. When you are as good as Ron Dayne, people will notice and for all the right reasons. This season, the 5-10, 255-pound Wisconsin tailback became the leading rusher in major college history, rolling up 6,397 career yards and breaking the mark set by Ricky Williams of the University of Texas.

Career: Purdue and Big Ten Conference career leader in passing attempts (1,639), passing completions (1,003), passing yards (11,517), passing touchdowns (88) and total offense (12,442) … Purdue leader in career completion percentage (.612) … ranks second in school history with 132.4 passing efficiency mark and 45 interceptions … tied for 14th with 14 rushing touchdowns and tied for 16th with 16 non-passing touchdowns (14 rushing and two receiving) … only quarterback in Big Ten history with two 500-plus passing yards … has school records of seven, 400-plus-yard passing games, 16, 300-plus-yard

Miami cornerback Phillip Buchanon recalls the first time he saw quarterback Ken Dorsey on the practice field.

"I thought, we aren't going to make it with this guy," Buchanon said, referring to the 6-5, 195 pound Dorsey. "He was so tall and skinny. I couldn't understand what the coaches were thinking when they got him."

In 2002, Penn State tailback Larry Johnson became only the ninth player in Division 1-A history to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a single season. What’s more, he accomplished that feat with the highest yards per carry average (8.03) on record.

Joe Paterno, who has coached the likes of Lenny Moore, Lydell Mitchell, Franco Harris and John Cappelletti at Penn State, called Johnson “one of the greatest football players I’ve ever been around, if not the greatest.”

When Eli Manning made the decision to attend the University of Mississippi, his father, Archie, who was a quarterback legend at the school 30 years ago, was concerned, understandably so.

"I had big worries," Archie said. "Not so much of him, but of the expectations. He was a little, skinny 17-year-old going up there into that."

Worries? What worries? All Eli did was throw five touchdown passes in his first start at Ole Miss and complete 18 consecutive passes (a school record) and the weight of those expectations didn't seem so overwhelming.

Jason White grew up in the tiny town of Tuttle, Oklahoma, population 4,000. On Saturdays in the fall, he could almost the echoes of "Boomer Sooner" rolling through Owen Field on the Oklahoma University campus. Tuttle was 20 miles from Owen Field, but for a youngster like White, it seemed like it was right around the corner. And there was never a doubt in his mind that he would play there one day.

Vince Young made a bold statement, predicting his University of Texas team would defeat mighty Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl. “Right now, I’m very confident,” Young said prior to the game. “Everybody is blowing them up and talking a lot of trash about us, but we’re coming to play.”