FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. — Marcus Davenport was one of a record 109 players that were named to the Wuerffel Trophy preseason watch list on Tuesday.
Known as "College Football's Premier Award for Community Service," the award is presented annually by the All-Sports Association in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Named after 1996 Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Danny Wuerffel from the University of Florida, the Wuerffel Trophy is awarded to the Football Bowl Subdivision player that best combines exemplary community service with athletics and academic achievement.
Davenport, a senior defensive end who earned a spot on this year's preseason All-Conference USA team on Monday, is an active participant in UTSA's community service program.
The San Antonio native participated in the school's inaugural St. Baldrick's Day this spring to help raise awareness to childhood cancer research. He also has served as a reading mentor as part of the Rowdy Readers program, given several speeches for the Dream Runners program, volunteered his time at Myers Elementary School, hosted student-athlete town halls for the athletics department and served on the Roadrunners' Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
On the field, Davenport is coming off a junior campaign that saw him earn second-team all-conference laurels. The 6-foot-7, 255-pound defensive end appeared in all 13 games (12 starts) and led the Roadrunners' defensive linemen with 68 tackles (31 solos/37 assists), including 10 for loss. He also had team-leading marks of 6.5 sacks and a program-record eight QB hurries. Davenport finished the season strong by posting 38 stops, seven TFLs and 4.5 sacks in the final six outings. He was an honorable mention all-conference choice two years ago as a sophomore and comes into his final season ranked second on the school's career tackles for loss and sacks charts (20.5/13.5) and third on the single-season lists (10.0/6.5 both in 2016).
Semifinalists for this year's award will be announced on Nov. 2 and finalists will be announced three weeks later on Nov. 22.
The formal announcement of this year's recipient will be made on Dec. 5 at the National Football Foundation's press conference in New York City and the presentation of the 2017 Wuerffel Trophy will occur on Feb. 16, 2018, at the 49th Annual All-Sports Association Awards Banquet.
Past winners include LSU's Rudy Niswanger (2005), Ohio State's Joel Penton (2006), Tulsa's Paul Smith (2007), Florida's Tim Tebow (2008), Western Michigan's Tim Hiller (2009), Texas' Sam Acho (2010), Alabama's Barrett Jones (2011), USC's Matt Barkley (2012), Oklahoma's Gabe Ikard (2013), Mississippi's Deterrian Shackelford (2014), Oklahoma's Ty Darlington (2015) and Texas A&M's Trevor Knight (2016).
