Bowling Green’s Davon Ferguson is one of 15 student-athletes named a semifinalist for the 2023 Comeback Player of the Year Award, which is given out by College Sports Communicators (formerly CoSIDA) in association with the Associated Press (AP) and the Fiesta Bowl Organization.
Since 2018, the award has recognized college football student-athletes from all divisions of college football for overcoming injury, illness or other circumstances.
At the conclusion of each season, in a vote by a panel of college football writers, editors and sports information directors, three college football student-athletes are honored as Comeback Player of the Year Award winners at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl. Ferguson is the only player from the MAC on the list.
Ferguson (Sr., Baltimore, Md.) is a seventh-year senior who has overcome multiple season-ending injuries to become one of the best defenders for the Falcons, who posted their best record since 2015.
Ferguson was one of the best players in the MAC in 2021 before suffering a lower-body injury that cost him the final four games of the season. He suffered another lower-body injury in the second game of the 2022 season, which cost him the rest of that campaign, too.
The Baltimore native played in all 12 games for the Falcons this season, tying for the team-lead with six pass breakups while posting 47 tackles, 6½ tackles for loss, 2½ sacks, two interceptions, one quarterback hurry and one fumble recovery.
Ferguson had two tackles, including one tackle for a loss, in the Falcons’ final regular season game, a 34-10 win at Western Michigan, as BGSU finished the regular season at 7-5 overall and 5-3 in MAC play.
Ferguson started his career at Hartnell College in Salinas, Calif., in 2017 before spending the 2018-20 seasons at Kansas, where he earned academic All-Big 12 honors in 2019 was twice named to the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll.
He recorded 55 tackles and two picks at Hartnell; tallied 90 tackles, 5 TFLs, one interception and one forced fumble at Kansas; and has amassed 123 tackles, 15.5 TFLs, 5.5 sacks, two picks, 12 passes defended, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery at Bowling Green.
