Miller, Simon win top honors on All-Big Ten Conference team

11/27/2012

Ohio State quar­ter­back Brax­ton Miller and de­fen­sive end John Si­mon earned ma­jor awards Mon­day, high­light­ing a ros­ter of seven Buck­eyes named to the All-Big Ten Con­fer­ence first team by the me­dia or coaches.

Miller was named the Griese-Brees quar­ter­back of the year and a first-team se­lec­tion by the me­dia, but re­ceived a sur­prise snub from the coaches, who dropped the soph­o­more to the sec­ond team in fa­vor of Ne­braska quar­ter­back Tay­lor Mar­ti­nez.

Si­mon, a se­nior cap­tain, was named Smith-Brown de­fen­sive line­man of the year and a unan­i­mous first-team se­lec­tion.

Soph­o­more cor­ner­back Brad­ley Roby was the Buck­eyes’ only other unan­i­mous first-team pick. The coaches voted for ju­nior de­fen­sive tackle Johna­than Han­kins, while the me­dia rec­og­nized soph­o­more line­backer Ryan Shaz­ier, se­nior cor­ner­back Travis Howard and ju­nior left guard An­drew Nor­well.

Left tackle Jack Mew­hort, a St. John’s Je­suit grad­u­ate, was one of four OSU ju­niors voted to the sec­ond team.

Mich­i­gan had three first-team se­lec­tions, in­clud­ing Tay­lor Le­wan, the Rim­ing­ton-Pace of­fen­sive line­man of the year, and Will Ha­gerup, the Ed­dle­man-Fields punter of the year. Se­nior guard Patrick Oma­meh made the coaches’ first team.

Le­wan, a unan­i­mous first-team se­lec­tion, has started 27 straight games at left tackle. Ha­gerup av­er­aged a con­fer­ence-best 45 yards per punt, punt­ing 33 times for 1,486 yards.

UM se­nior safety Jor­dan Kovacs, a Clay grad­u­ate, was a sec­ond-team coaches se­lec­tion.

Else­where, Iowa se­nior cor­ner­back Mi­cah Hyde, a Fosto­ria grad­u­ate, was named Ta­tum-Wood­son de­fen­sive back of the year af­ter fin­ish­ing fourth in the con­fer­ence with 15 passes de­fended. Hyde, a three-year starter, also had two forced fum­bles and an in­ter­cep­tion.

The Big Ten will an­nounce its of­fen­sive and de­fen­sive play­ers of the year and coach of the year to­day.

Miller, a top can­di­date for of­fen­sive player of the year, was sec­ond in the Big Ten in to­tal of­fense at 275.8 yards per game and led the Buck­eyes with 1,271 rush­ing yards and 13 touch­downs. Si­mon, whom OSU coach Ur­ban Meyer called the team’s “heart and soul,” led the league with nine sacks and ranked third with 14.5 tack­les for a loss.

“I am happy for all of the mem­bers of this team who are be­ing hon­ored, and also for their team­mates, whose hard work helped these guys earn this Big Ten rec­og­ni­tion,” Meyer said. “It is a trib­ute to the work ethic of both John Si­mon and Brax­ton Miller, cou­pled with the fact that they are both ex­cel­lent foot­ball play­ers, that they were named play­ers of the year at their po­si­tions.”