AUBURN, Ala. – The PwC SMU Athletic Forum released the preseason candidates for the 2020 Doak Walker Award on Wednesday, and Auburn sophomore D.J. Williams made the list. The award is presented annually to the nation's top college running back.
Williams played in eight games as a freshman and rushed for 400 yards and two touchdowns. His breakout performance came on the road at No. 1 LSU when he rushed for a career-high 130 yards on 13 carries, averaging 10 yards per carry. He gained 104 all-purpose yards the next week against Ole Miss and scored his first career touchdown. He later added another touchdown against Samford.
With 400 yards in his first season, Williams ranks 16th all-time among freshman running backs at Auburn.
Now a sophomore, Williams is the team's leading rusher returning. He heads a backfield that also includes fellow sophomores Shaun Shivers and Harold Joiner along with redshirt freshman Mark-Antony Richards, who missed all of last year due to injury, and incoming freshman Cartavious "Tank" Bigsby.
Though Auburn has never had a player win the Doak Walker Award, the school has had eight different semifinalists for the award going back to 2004. Four of those have come since Gus Malzahn took over as head coach in 2013 with the most recent coming in 2017 when Kerryon Johnson made the cut as a semifinalist.
For this year's award, the PwC SMU Athletic Forum Board of Directors will name ten semifinalists in November, and three finalists, as voted on by the Doak Walker Award National Selection Committee, will be announced in November. The committee will cast a second vote in December to determine the recipient. The National Selection Committee consists of past recipients, former NFL All-Pro and college All-America running backs, media members and selected special representatives.
The 2020 Doak Walker Award winner will be announced live on The Home Depot College Football Awards.
The award is named for SMU's three-time All-America running back Doak Walker. It is the only major collegiate award that requires all candidates to be in good academic standing and on schedule to graduate within one year of other students of the same classification.