The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

What, Daryl worry?

Two more preseason watch lists came out today and WVU has another name to note. Junior punter Nick O’Toole made the Ray Guy Award watch list, and will have to be more consistent than he was last year to win in 2014.

The Lou Groza Award list also came out and omitted sophomore Josh Lambert, who was perfect inside 30 yards (6-for-6) and pretty good (10-for-12) between 30 and 49 yards. He was also busy … imagine a Dana Holgorsen kicker making 17 field goals and attempting 23. That’s a loaded statistic, no?

Tomorrow features two more awards. Junior Karl Joseph, already on the Bednarik Award list for a similar best defensive player award, might be included on the Nagurski Award list. Senior guard Quinton Spain could also see his name on the Outland Trophy list for the best lineman.

And Friday? That’s interesting … 

“I want to help the team be the best it can be, we want to win a Big 12 championship, but if I could point out individual goals,” sophomore cornerback Daryl Worley said, “I’m definitely looking for the Jim Thorpe (Award).”

That one goes to the nation’s best defensive back and it might include Joseph before it includes Worley, who, to be fair, was referring to the award at the end of the season. Still, a watch list spot for Worley shouldn’t be entirely disregarded. Oklahoma’s Blake Bell made the Mackey watch list Tuesday. He was the Sooners quarterback last season and only started playing tight end in the spring, which was cut short by a knee sprain.

Worley, a sophomore from Philadelphia, played 11 games with five starts last season and finished with 45 tackles and five pass breakups, which ranked second on the team. He played everywhere in the secondary last season out of both necessity and ingenuity, but also because the coaches weren’t really sure until this past spring whether he was a cornerback or a safety.

He’s locked in at cornerback and one just the right side of the field for this fall. So impressive was his performance in the spring, so high is his potential for his second season that he, too, was invited by WVU coach Dana Holgorsen to the conference media days.

“Now, with me being solidified at one position and being at cornerback, I’d like to work to be the best cornerback I can be,” he said. “People can call it a shutdown corner. I just call it doing my job. If there’s a time out there where a receiver one game doesn’t catch a ball all game, I feel like I’ve done my job. With me doing that, I’m doing nothing but helping everyone else around me, from the safeties to the corner on the other side of the field.”