DALLAS (FWAA) – UNLV linebacker Jackson Woodard blasted through the Houston defense for three sacks and a game-high 11 tackles as the Rebels opened their defense of the Mountain West regular-season title with a 27-7 win at Houston. For his game-breaking effort, Woodard earned the Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week honor for games during the weekend of Aug. 31, as selected by the Football Writers Association of America.
Each week during the regular season, the FWAA has selected a Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week since 2001. The FWAA and the Charlotte Touchdown Club will announce finalists for the 2024 Bronko Nagurski Trophy on Nov. 20. The national defensive player of the year will be chosen from those finalists who are part of the 2024 FWAA All-America Team and presented with the trophy at the Bronko Nagurski Awards Banquet on Dec. 9 at the Charlotte Convention Center.
Players may be added or removed from the Bronko Nagurski Trophy watch list during the season. If a player isn’t aready on the preseason watch list, each week’s honored player will be added at that time. Woodard, coming off a first-team All-Mountain West season, was already a member.
The 6-3, 230-pound senior from Little Rock, Ark., had four tackles for loss that lost 28 yards for Houston. Three of those were sacks, already surpassing his 2023 season total and placing Woodard tied for the national lead this week with one other player. The 2024 Preseason Co-Defensive Player of the Year in the Mountain West Conference posted a game-high 11 tackles, seven of them solos, and also had a pass breakup as Houston gained only 247 yards of total offense and only 38 on the ground.
Woodard was a 2023 First Team All-MW selection after ranking third in the conference with 117 total tackles last fall.
The win was UNLV’s first over a Big 12 opponent since 2008 and head coach Barry Odom became the first UNLV head coach to win his first two season-openers at the school since Tony Knap in 1976-77.
Woodard stands out off the field as well. He was the first Rebels football player in history named CSC First Team Academic All-America and he’s UNLV’s 2024 nominee for both the Allstate Wuerffel Trophy and AFCA Good Works Team.
Woodard is the first UNLV player to earn the weekly Bronko Nagurski Trophy honor since Jamaal Brimmer in 2003 in an upset of Wisconsin.
UNLV opens its home schedule Saturday hosting Utah Tech at 12 p.m. PT on the Mountain West Network.
The FWAA All-America Committee, after voting input from the association’s full membership, selects a 26-man All-America Team and eventually the Bronko Nagurski Trophy finalists. The Bronko Nagurski Trophy winner will be chosen from the finalists named in November. Committee members, by individual ballot, select the winner they regard as the best defensive player in college football.
The FWAA has chosen a National Defensive Player of the Year since 1993. In 1995, the FWAA named the award in honor of the legendary two-way player from the University of Minnesota. Nagurski dominated college football, then became a star for professional football’s Chicago Bears in the 1930s. Bronislaw "Bronko" Nagurski is a charter member of both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
The Bronko Nagurski Trophy is a member of the National College Football Awards Association. Founded in 1997, the NCFAA includes college football’s most prestigious awards and its 24 awards have honored more than 900 recipients dating back to 1935. This season, 12 NCFAA awards will honor national players of the week each Tuesday.
For more information about the NCFAA and its award programs, visit NCFAA.org or follow on Twitter at @NCFAA.
The Charlotte Touchdown Club is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 1990 for the purpose of promoting high school, collegiate, and professional football in the Charlotte, North Carolina region. Since its inception, the club has grown as well as diversified boasting a sponsor team of more than (80) companies. The Club's activities and services focus community attention on the outstanding Citizenship, Scholarship, Sportsmanship, and Leadership of area athletes and coaches. Through individual and corporate support, more than $3,000,000 has been raised and donated to benefit the Touchdown Club's scholarship efforts.
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Founded in 1941, the Football Writers Association of America consists of 1,300 men and women who cover college football. The membership includes journalists, broadcasters and publicists, as well as key executives in all the areas that involve the game. The FWAA works to govern areas that include game-day operations, major awards and its annual All-America team. For more information about the FWAA and its award programs, contact Steve Richardson at tiger@fwaa.com.