Big 12 Preseason Awards Announced

With Big 12 Media Days coming up next week, football seems to be just around the corner. Before fall camp opens, media members were asked to vote on several preseason awards. Here are how the votes shook out:

A tie in voting at DB created an additional spot.
^ 2014 Preseason Team
# 2014 All-Big 12 First Team selection
* 2014 All-Big 12 Second Team selection

Not too many surprises on the list, as TCU's Trevone Boykin is the preseason pick for preseason Offensive Player of the Year, fresh off of winning the award at the end of last season. What a difference a year makes, eh? Man-beast Shawn Oakman is named the preseason defensive player of the year, which isn't all that surprising, except for the fact that he might not even be the best defensive player on his own team - though arguably the most disruptive and hardest to game plan against. Newcomer of the year goes to incoming running back Chris Carson at OSU, a four star juco transfer who was a late flip to the Cowboys from Georgia.

Joining Boykin on the first team offense are teammates Josh Doctson at receiver and Joey Hunt and Halapoulivaati Vaitai from the TCU offensive line. In a sign of the times and the changing of the guard on that side of the ball, the Frogs only have one preseason defensive nominee: lineman Davion Pierson.

Two time Big 12 champion Baylor has seven representatives, the most of any conference team. OU is right behind them with five, and Texas has only a single player - DB Duke Thomas. Neither Kansas nor Iowa State had a player voted in, while each other school outside of UT had at least two players make the cut.

If you want to look at potential Frog snubs, Cameron Echols-Luper losing out at punt returner to Alex Ross of OU and Aaron Green not making the cut at running back - Samaje Perine (OU) and Shock Linwood (Baylor) garnered those honors - would be the two easiest arguments to make. Also, Kolby Listenbee was left off the list, but in a very deep wide receiver group, it's hard to pick just three. Frankly, dropping the tight end and fullback and adding two additional receiver slots is more in line with the way the conference plays these days, anyway. One other name to watch? Ranthony Texada - it's not the deepest or greatest group at DB, and Texada will have plenty of chances to make a name for himself this fall. But, as we know, the preseason lists don't mean all that much - and frankly, a little extra chip on the shoulders of the TCU players after an off-season of praise can't be a bad thing.