Honors Keep Rolling In for Buckner
by Rob Moseley
Editor, GoDucks.com
Despite playing the last three years on the same line as an eventual top-20 NFL draft pick, DeForest Buckner clearly hasn’t gone unnoticed by the college football cognoscenti.
Buckner, the UO senior defensive end, was named Tuesday to the preseason watch list for the Rotary Lombardi Award, as announced by the Houston Sports Authority. Also on the preseason watch list is fifth-year offensive tackle Tyler Johnstone.
Oregon will play the 2015 season without defensive end Arik Armstead, who left the program after his junior season and was the No. 17 pick in this year’s NFL draft, by the San Francisco 49ers. But after leading the UO defensive line in tackles last season, Buckner opted to return to school and is gobbling up preseason honors the way he gobbled up opposing ballcarriers the last three years.
Last week, Buckner was named to the watch lists for the Bednarik Award and Nagurski Trophy, two national defensive player of the year honors. The newest body to add him to a watch list, the Lombardi Award committee, attempts to recognize the “down lineman, end-to-end, either on offense or defense, who set(s) up no farther than 10 yards to the left or right of the ball, or linebackers who set up no farther than five yards deep from the line of scrimmage.”
Johnstone made the Lombardi watch list despite missing all of the 2014 season due to injury. An honorable mention all-Pac-12 selection as a sophomore in 2013, Johnstone last week was named to the preseason watch list for the Outland Trophy.
The Lombardi Award will announce 12 semifinalists in early November, and the winner a month later. Among the other preseason watch list members are 2014 winner Scooby Wright III of Arizona, and 2014 semifinalist Shilique Calhoun of Michigan State, whom the Ducks will face in a road game on Sept. 12.
