Longhorn Football Celebrates 2013 Season, Seniors At Banquet
The Longhorn football team gathered with family, and supporters at the Erwin Center on Friday night to celebrate the 2013 season, the senior class, and to give awards to the best players. The team named senior defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat the most valuable player, and Mike Davis won his second straight player of the year award.
The players selected senior defensive tackle Chris Whaley, senior safety Adrian Phillips, Jeffcoat and senior quarterback Case McCoy as the 2013 team captains for their outstanding leadership on and off the field.
Along with the George “Hook” McCullough Most Valuable Player award (voted by his teammates), Jeffcoat won Mike Campbell Most Valuable Defensive Player and shared in six of the 14 awards.
Jeffcoat leads the team in tackles (80), tackles for loss (21), sacks (12.0) and quarterback pressures (18) The Plano, Texas, native ranks first in the Big 12 and is tied for third in the FBS in sack (1.0 pg/12.0), as well as tied for 22nd nationally in fumbles recovered (0.25 pg/three). He captured the 2013 Ted Hendricks Award and was named the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year by the Associated Press and league’s coaches (shared with TCU’s Jason Verrett).
For the second year in a row, senior wide receiver Mike Davis received the Darrell K Royal Most Valuable Offensive Player award. Davis has a team-high 715 receiving yards and eight touchdown receptions this season and has also moved into fourth place on UT’s all-time career receiving yards list (2,741).
After a week of speculation on the future of Mack Brown's career, many watched Longhorn Network's live broadcast of the event to see if any announcements in that regards to his future would be made.
The banquet included a tribute to the 32 year career of athletics director Deloss Dodds, who retired in October. The banquet also included speeches from UT President Bill Powers, athletics director Steve Patterson, and the honorary speaker Don Evans.
Each of Dodds', Power's, and Patterson's speeches include praise of the job that Mack Brown has done over his sixteen year career as the head coach, and the outstanding job he continues to do. Both Powers and Patterson said that they looked forward to working with him for years to come.
Brown closed then banquet by saying, "I'm proud of this team. It's been a team with no excuses, a team with no regrets, and now we need to go beat Oregon."
All Awards and the winners:
