South Carolina football's LaNorris Sellers makes another prestigious award watch list

South Carolina football quarterback LaNorris Sellers has earned a place on the preseason watch list for the Davey O’Brien Award. Given annually to the nation’s top quarterback, the Davey O’Brien Award nominated 36 quarterbacks this preseason.

Sellers’ nomination comes on the heels of a stellar redshirt freshman season in 2024. En route to becoming the first coaches’ selection All-SEC quarterback in program history, Sellers also posted the best single-month performance ever by a Gamecock, accounting for 16 touchdowns in November during a 6-0 finish to the regular season.

If Sellers can replicate that level of production, he will remain in every award conversation, and the Gamecocks will be legitimate College Football Playoff contenders.

This preseason, Sellers has been included on watch lists for the Maxwell Award and Walter Camp Award, made several preseason All-American teams, and earned spots on virtually every preseason All-SEC squad.

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From the South Carolina Athletics release:

University of South Carolina redshirt sophomore quarterback LaNorris Sellers is one of 36 quarterbacks named to the 2025 Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award Preseason Watch List, the Davey O’Brien Foundation announced today.

Compiled by a subset of the Davey O’Brien National Selection Committee, this year’s list was selected based on previous Division I career player performance as well as expectations heading into the 2025 college football season.

Sellers, a 6-3, 240-pound redshirt sophomore from Florence, S.C., was the 2024 National Freshman Offensive Player of the Year as selected by the Football Writers of America. He was also a 2024 Freshman All-American, an SEC All-Freshman selection and a third-team All-SEC pick by the league’s 16 coaches. He threw for 2,534 yards and 18 touchdowns while completing 65.6 percent of his passes and added 674 yards and seven touchdowns rushing in his first season as a starting signal-caller.

The official Davey O’Brien Midseason Watch List will be released on Tuesday, Oct. 21, and will contain active quarterbacks from the Preseason Watch List, players honored as weekly Great 8 recipients through the season’s first eight weeks and any additional quarterbacks approved by the selection subcommittee.

The 35-player Davey O’Brien QB Class of 2025 will be announced on Tuesday, Oct. 28. For the fifth straight year, fan voting on social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) will earn players bonus selection committee votes during the semifinalist, finalist and winner voting rounds. First-round fan voting will begin Oct. 28 following the QB Class announcement.

The list of semifinalists selected from the QB Class will be named on Wednesday, Nov. 12. The Foundation will announce the three finalists two weeks later (Tuesday, Nov. 25). The 2025 Davey O’Brien Award winner will be unveiled live on ESPN on Thursday, Dec. 11, during The Home Depot College Football Awards.

The Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award is presented annually to the nation’s best college quarterback and is the oldest and most prestigious national quarterback award. The 49th Annual Davey O’Brien Awards Dinner honoring the winner will be held Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, at The Fort Worth Club in Fort Worth, Texas. For more information, visit www.daveyobrienaward.com.

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