Donald Brown Named ECAC Player Of The Year
Seniors Cody Brown And Darius Butler Also Honored
CENTERVILLE, Mass. (January 8, 2009) — University of Connecticut junior running back Donald Brown has been named the 2008 ECAC Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Player of the Year.
The nation’s leading rusher finished the season with 2,083 yards and 18 touchdowns, placing him 11th all-time in FBS history for rushing yards in a season. Brown led the Huskies to a 8-5 mark and an International Bowl victory over Buffalo. In that game, Brown rushed for a career-high 261 yards.
Brown was also named First Team All-America by the Sporting News and was a Second Team All-America by the Associated Press and the Walter Camp Football Foundation. He was also named the BIG EAST Conference Offensive Player of the Year and First Team All-BIG EAST.
Following the International Bowl, Brown announced that he would be entering the National Football League draft.
Brown was named named to the All-ECAC FBS team along with senior defensive lineman Cody Brown (Coral Springs, Fla.) and senior cornerback Darius Butler (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.).
U.S. Naval Academy freshman defensive lineman Jabaree Tuani has been chosen as the 2008 ECAC Football Bowl Subdivision Rookie of the Year. Tuani led the Midshipmen in forced fumbles with three and tackles for loss with nine, while also recording 42 total tackles. Navy finished the season 8-5, making a trip to the EagleBank Bowl against Wake Forest.
The ECAC will honor the players and rookies of the year in each division and region on February 24, 2009 at the annual Eastern College Football Awards Banquet presented by FieldTurf Tarkett, an event held in the Pegasus Restaurant at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, N.J.
The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) is the nation’s largest athletic conference and only multi-divisional conference, with 321 member institutions and over 122,000 student-athletes ranging across 16 states from Maine to North Carolina and westerly to Illinois.
