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Kennedy Brooks, Ronnie Perkins Make Preseason Award Watch Lists

Both Sooners were second-team All-Big 12 last season
John E. Hoover|
Kennedy Brooks, Ronnie Perkins Make Preseason Award Watch Lists
Kennedy Brooks, Ronnie Perkins Make Preseason Award Watch Lists

If it’s July, it must be college football awards watch list season.

Oklahoma running back Kennedy Brooks was named to the Doak Walker Award watch list on Wednesday, a day after defensive end Ronnie Perkins was named to the Chuck Bednarik Award watch list.

The Doak Walker Award is given to the player deemed the top running back in college football. The Bednarik Award goes to the top overall defensive player.

Although Perkins is a longshot (he’s scheduled to serve an NCAA suspension for up to five games this season following a positive drug test ahead of last year’s Peach Bowl), Brooks should be considered a strong contender.

Brooks rushed for 1,056 yards and 12 touchdowns as a freshman and 1,011 yards and six TDs as a sophomore. He has a chance to be just the fourth player in school history to surpass 1,000 yards three times (joining De’Mond Parker, Adrian Peterson and Samaje Perine), and he could have an opportunity for plenty of action this fall.

Brooks split carries with Trey Sermon during his first two seasons, but Sermon transferred to Ohio State and the backups behind Brooks are mostly young or inexperienced. Brooks registered a career-high 155 yards last season. After averaging 7.5 yards per carry in his first two seasons — including 8.9 as a freshman, which ranked third in the nation in 2018 — he might be in for a much bigger workload.

The 5-foot-11, 214-pound Brooks, from Mansfield, TX, is majoring in Communications at OU.

Perkins, a 6-3, 247-pound junior from St. Louis, led the Sooners with 11 quarterback sacks over the last two seasons to go with 21.5 tackles for loss and 75 total tackles.

Both Brooks and Perkins were chosen second-team All-Big 12 by both coaches and media in 2019.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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