NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt football’s Eli Stowers picked up a pair of honors revealed on ESPN’s College Football Awards Show Friday including claiming the John Mackey Award presented to the nation’s most outstanding tight end.
The Denton, Texas, resident—who received the William V. Campbell Trophy®, given to the top college football scholar-athlete in the country, on Tuesday—was also named first-team All-America by the Walter Camp Football Foundation.
Entering the postseason, Stowers leads all NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision tight ends with 769 receiving yards while his 62 receptions are the second-highest total in the country at the position. He has reached the end zone on four occasions, including twice at No. 20/19 when he caught seven passes for a career-best 146 yards to be named the John Mackey Award’s Tight End of the Week. The graduate student followed that performance with a career-high 12 receptions for 122 yards in a win over Auburn as he would be named to the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award Honorable Mention List for the second week in a row.
Stowers has finished with multiple catches in each of the Commodores’ 12 games this fall, leading the team in the category a team-best six times while also pacing the squad in receiving yards in four contests. With six yards in Vandy’s ReliaQuest Bowl matchup with Iowa he will post the most by a Dore tight end since 1996.
Stowers has helped lead Vanderbilt to a school-record 10 wins this season, with the Commodores in the top 15 in the final College Football playoff and current Associated Press and AFCA coaches’ rankings. The Dores and Hawkeyes are set for an 11 a.m. CT kickoff on ESPN on New Year’s Eve in Tampa, Florida.
