Bryson Daily was named the American Athletic Conference’s offensive player of the year, and he was also the MVP of the conference’s championship game.
Army coach Jeff Monken believes his quarterback deserves even more — the biggest award in college football. After the No. 24 Black Knights’ 35-14 win over Tulane on Friday night, Monken said Daily should be in New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony next Saturday.
“I don’t know that there’s anybody in the country that would balk at the idea of the starting quarterback of the Army Black Knights, who’s rushed for 100 yards in a game 10 games in a row on an 11-1 team that just won the conference championship, why doesn’t that guy belong down?” Monken said.
“There’s a lot of great football players in the country but there’s not one who means more to his team than that guy sitting right down there,” he added, pointing to Daily. “And so it’s the MVP of college football. Who’s most valuable to their team? I’d argue there’s not a guy in America more valuable to their team than Bryson Daily.”
Daily ran for four touchdowns on Friday, tying the AAC Championship game record. That gave him 29 touchdowns for the season, breaking the league’s record and tying No. 10 Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty — a Heisman contender — for the most touchdowns in the nation.
The 221-pound Texan rushed for 126 yards on 25 carries and has scored multiple touchdowns in 10 straight games. Army converted 4 of 5 fourth downs, and Daily had touchdown runs of 5, 3, 4, and 7 yards.
“The Bryson Daily guy is like a linebacker carrying the football,” said Tulane coach Jon Sumrall.
Daily gave credit to his offensive line, saying they played their best game of the season despite hearing that Tulane — the No. 2 seed and 4 1/2-point favorite — had the defensive strategy to stop Army’s top-ranked rushing offense.
“The line of scrimmage was getting moved 2-to-3 yards and by the fourth quarter 4-to-5 yards,” Daily said. “They played awesome just like they have all year.”
Army’s offense may be simple to predict but hard to stop, mostly because of Daily. The senior has rushed for 1,480 yards this season, despite missing one game due to injury and with one more game to play in the regular season.
That game will be next Saturday against Navy in Landover, Maryland. If Monken had his way, Daily would then head to New York with hopes of joining Army legends Felix “Doc” Blanchard, Glenn Davis, and Pete Dawkins as Heisman winners.
“I don’t have a vote in it and they’re not going to listen to me, but he belongs down there,” Monken said. “And I know that the college football world would be thrilled to see that, and how many times in history is there going to be an academy player that legitimately could go down there and everybody feels like that guy belongs? You know what, this is that time in history. That guy belongs down there, that’s what I think.”
