Three finalists will be announced on November 26 and the eventual winner will be announced on December 12.<\/p>\n
Four Big Ten Defensive Backs Named Jim Thorpe Award Semifinalists<\/h2>\nCaleb Downs (Ohio State)<\/h3>\n
One of two underclassmen on the list, Caleb Downs<\/a> has been revolutionary in the Buckeyes’ secondary<\/a>. After being the first freshman to lead Alabama in tackles and racking up honor after honor last year, Downs transferred to Ohio State and has continued his elite play.<\/p>\n Through seven games, Downs has played the most out of any Buckeye defender with 381 snaps. He is third on the team with 31 tackles, second with five-and-a-half tackles for loss, with half of a sack, and three pass breakups.<\/p>\n The hype is justified with Downs. He shows up in big moments and rarely misses a tackle.<\/p>\n Downs is looking to be the third Buckeye to hoist the Jim Thorpe Award (Antoine Winfield<\/a>, 1998; Malcolm Jenkins<\/a>, 2008).<\/p>\n Despite battling injuries, Will Johnson<\/a> is playing at a high level. An easy choice for the Jim Thorpe Award semifinalist list, Johnson is expected to be one of, if not the top cornerback taken in the 2025 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n While he has just 14 tackles and one tackle for loss in six games played, Johnson has two pick-sixes and broke up five other passes. On 26 targets in coverage, Johnson has allowed a meager 52.6 passer rating. He was named to midseason All-American lists as well as the Lott IMPACT Trophy Quarterfinalist list.<\/p>\n Johnson has an opportunity to be the second Michigan Wolverine to win the award after 1997 Heisman Trophy winner Charles Woodson<\/a> did so.<\/p>\n The former Oklahoma State and Washington corner has found even more success with Oregon. Jabbar Muhammad<\/a> is no stranger to high-level play<\/a>. He is coming off of back-to-back seasons where he made incredible impacts for his teams.<\/p>\n This year, through eight games, Muhammad has recorded 22 tackles, one tackle for loss, and seven pass breakups. He is currently widely-expected as a third-round prospect but Muhammad is playing his way into top-50 consideration. When the NFL Scouting Combine rolls around, he will be a name to watch.<\/p>\n Muhammad is playing to be the first-ever Oregon Duck to win the Jim Thorpe Award.<\/p>\n Illinois’ 6-2 start has taken the Big Ten by storm and the play of Xavier Scott<\/a> has been a massive help. The junior corner is baking up his strong play from a season ago when he led the Big Ten in passes defensed.<\/p>\n To date, Scott has recorded 29 tackles, two tackles for loss, a sack, three interceptions, one pick-six, two more passes broken up, and forced a fumble. According to PFF’s grading, he is the top-rated tackler among all Power 4 cornerbacks and is second among all FBS players.<\/p>\n Illinois has never had a Jim Thorpe Award winner but Scott is on his way to being the first.<\/p>\n The Rest of the Field<\/p>\n In the history of the Jim Thorpe Award, nine Big Ten defenders have won. This year, four players were named semifinalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":59955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,35631],"tags":[493,7983,316,274,279,73,277],"class_list":["post-67270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-featured","category-michigan-wolverines","tag-awards","tag-big-ten-football","tag-illinois-fighting-illini","tag-jim-thorpe-award","tag-michigan-wolverines","tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","tag-oregon-ducks"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4051"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79833,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67270\/revisions\/79833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Will Johnson (Michigan)<\/h3>\n
Jabbar Muhammad (Oregon)<\/h3>\n
Xavier Scott (Illinois)<\/h3>\n
\n
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