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WVU’s Bartlett Named National Defensive Player of the Week

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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The Football Writers Association of America just announced that WVU Football’s redshirt sophomore BANDIT Jared Bartlett has been named the Bronko Nagurski National Player of the Week for his stops against Virginia Tech on Sept. 18.

With a career-high five tackles and half of the six sacks of VT’s Braxton Burmeister, along with a forced and recovered fumble, Bartlett is more than deserving of the national award. When the Big 12 Conference awarded him the conference’s Defensive Player of the Week on Sept. 20, he became the first Mountaineer to earn a conference weekly award this season. Now… he’s making national awards lists. He’s the first Mountaineer to win this weekly honor since Karl Joseph in 2015 following an eight-tackle, three-interception game against Georgia Southern.

Bartlett joins fellow Mountaineer Dante Stills on the Bronko Nagurski Watch List; Stills was named to the list back on Jul. 27. Bartlett, along with weeks one and two winners Jordan Davis (Georgia) and Verone McKinley (Oregon), will be joined by a new member of the Watch List every regular season Tuesday until three finalists are selected on Nov. 17. Of note, former Mountaineer Tykee Smith, now at Georgia, is also on the list, having also joined on Jul. 27 with Stills.

The Mountaineers have only recorded two Bronko Nagurski Trophy finalists in program history. In 1996 and 2003, Canute Curtis and Grant Wiley, respectively, found themselves in the finals, but neither secured the Bronko Nagurski Trophy.