All Sooners

Oklahoma QB Dillon Gabriel Wins Third National Player of the Week Award

The Sooners quarterback was lauded with the Walter Camp Award after landing national recognition earlier Tuesday from the Davey O'Brien Award and the Maxwell Award.
John E. Hoover|
Oklahoma QB Dillon Gabriel Wins Third National Player of the Week Award
Oklahoma QB Dillon Gabriel Wins Third National Player of the Week Award

In this story:

Oklahoma Sooners

Two national awards simply weren’t enough to recognize what Dillon Gabriel did over the weekend.

Oklahoma’s senior quarterback took home his third national college football of the day on Tuesday afternoon, this time the Walter Camp National FBS Player of the Week.

Gabriel totaled 398 yards of total offense — 285 passing and a career-high 113 rushing — as then-No. 12 Oklahoma rallied to beat No. 3-ranked Texas, 34-30.

Gabriel’s heroics included a 75-yard touchdown drive in 62 seconds with no timeouts, culminated by a 3-yard touchdown pass to Nic Anderson with 15 seconds left to complete the comeback.

OU improved to 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Big 12 Conference, while climbing to No. 5 in the AP Top 25 poll this week.

Earlier in the day, Gabriel was announced as the winner of this week’s Maxwell Award national player of the week, and the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback of the Week.

In addition to Gabriel's three national awards, Oklahoma offensive tackle Walter Rouse and Sooners wide receiver Jalil Farooq also landed national awards for their respective performances against the Longhorns. 

Read More

Jalil Farooq Lands Paul Hornung Award

Dillon Gabriel, Walter Rouse Nab Maxwell, Outland Awards

Head coach Brent Venables also was accorded for his first victory over the Longhorns as he received the Bobby Dodd National Coach of the Week.

Gabriel is actually the second Oklahoma player this season to earn the Walter Camp National FBS Player of Week honors, joining linebacker Danny Stutsman, who received the award on Sept. 10 after a 17-tackle performance against SMU. Gabriel is also the 12th Sooner since 2004 to receive the weekly accolade.

It’s also Gabriel’s second time to receive the Camp Award. As a freshman at UCF in 2019, he landed Camp Offensive Player of Week honors.

Gabriel also was named Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week on Monday.

With his team trailing 30-27 with 1:17 to go and no timeouts, Gabriel engineered a drive for the ages. He committed zero turnovers in the game and became the first Sooner to ever throw for at least 250 yards and rush for at least 100 yards in a game against Texas.

Gabriel’s previous career high in rushing yards was 64, but he went 44 yards with a draw play in the fourth quarter, which stands as OU's longest rush of the season. The Mililani, HI, product helped direct the Sooners to their first win against an AP top-five team since 2017 as OU gained 486 yards and scored 34 points against a Texas team that entered the day giving up 290.8 yards and 12.8 points per game.

On the season, Gabriel is completing 72.3 percent of his passes for 313.0 yards per game and has thrown 16 touchdown passes (all three lead the Big 12) with just two interceptions. He has also rushed for 208 yards and a team-high five TDs.

Gabriel also leads the league in pass efficiency rating (178.2; ranks eighth nationally), points responsible for per game (21.0; ranks fourth nationally) and total offense (347.7 yards per game; ranks fourth nationally).

OU is off this week before hosting UCF (3-3, 0-3 Big 12) on Saturday, Oct. 21 at Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Kickoff is set for 11 a.m. CT and the game will be televised by ABC.

OU Media Relations contributed to this report.

Published
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.

Share on XFollow johnehoover
Home/Football