Gabe Marks makes elite list with record-setting performance
PULLMAN – For the second consecutive season, a wide receiver on the Washington State football team is a semifinalist for the Biletnikoff Award.
The Tallahassee Quarterback Club Foundation announced on Tuesday that Gabe Marks is one of 10 semifinalists for the award, which is bestowed upon college football’s most outstanding receiver at the end of the season.
Last year, Vince Mayle was also named a semifinalist for the award.
Like Mayle before him, Marks is at the forefront of several statistical receiving categories and will almost certainly finish the season with numbers that compare favorably to his competition for the award.
Marks enters the week fourth in the country and leading the Pac-12 in receptions (81) and touchdown catches (13). He is currently just four touchdown catches shy of the Pac-12 single-season record (17).
Marks is a redshirt junior with three games remaining this season, including a bowl, and yet last Saturday, during WSU’s 31-27 win over No. 18 UCLA, he shattered Michael Bumpus’ school record for career catches (195) by making 12 receptions, giving him 204 for his career.
“I’ve been eyeing that for a long time. That was kind of my selfish thing,” Marks said.
Marks also made the game-winning touchdown grab with 3 seconds left to secure WSU’s win in the Rose Bowl. Afterwards, he gave his mother the game ball.
Along with Marks, Dom Williams and River Cracraft spent the season on the Biletnikoff Award’s watch list, making WSU the only school from a power five conference with three receivers under consideration. Last year, Cracraft and Isiah Myers joined Mayle on the watch list.
Marks is one of just two Biletnikoff semifinalists from the Pac-12, USC’s Juju Smith-Schuster being the other. Only four Pac-12 players have ever won the award: Stanford’s Troy Walters (1999), Mike Haas of Oregon State (2005), USC’s Marqise Lee (2012) and Oregon State’s Brandin Cooks (2013).
But if Marks were to win, it would be the third time a Mike Leach-coached receiver has won the award. Michael Crabtree won it in back-to-back seasons (2007 and 2008) when Leach was at Texas Tech.
There is an interactive component to Biletnikoff Award selection. Fans can vote once daily on the Biletnikoff Award FanVote page and the winner of the fans’ vote will receive one official vote to determine the award finalists and winner.
Falk among toughest
Before Graham Harrell was an outside receivers coach for Mike Leach, he played quarterback for the WSU coach, who at the time coached TTU. Harrell once broke two fingers in his hand during a game, rejected the advice of trainers at halftime to stop playing, and led the Red Raiders to a share of the Big 12 South title.
Another Leach quarterback, last year’s WSU starter Connor Halliday, once finished a football game after sustaining a lacerated liver.
Luke Falk took a hit against UCLA that knocked him to the turf, from where he repeatedly tried and failed to stagger to his feet. Somehow, he returned to play the second half and led the Cougars to a victory.
When asked if Falk was one of the toughest quarterback he’s coached, Leach replied, “Yeah, I think that’s true. I think that’s definitely true. And also just being real clear-minded after he gets hit and responding well the next play after he gets hit.”
Leach added that he began to notice Falk’s toughness “about a third of the way through this season.”
No playoffs
The Pac-12 will almost certainly not be represented in the college football playoffs, since every team has at least two losses, but could have as many as 10 teams qualify for a bowl game. Leach says it is the toughest conference for a team to get through unscathed.
“I think indisputably so,” Leach said. “Right now, everybody’s playing extremely tough conference opponents and right now the SEC, if not this week, last week, they’re all playing a (Division)-1 AA opponent. … we’re in the middle of murderer’s row, and then also we play an extra conference game.”