Brandin Cooks a Biletnikoff Finalist

Finally, a bit of good news after last weekend's debacle.

The Biletnikoff Award, given to the nation's best wide receiver, has announced their three finalists, and Brandin Cooks is one of them. This means he will be invited to the ESPN Home Depot College Awards show on December 12th. The official release can be found here.

And you can help him win the award. The fan vote will be compiled, and the winner of that fan will be granted as one vote of the selection committee. Will that vote make a difference? Probably not, but it never hurts to try. You can go here to vote, and I believe you can do it once a day.

His fellow finalists are Sammy Watkins of Clemson and Mike Evans of Texas A&M.

Stats to date (all players have played 11 games):

Brandin Cooks: 15 TD's, 1560 yards (141.8 per game), 110 receptions, 14.2 YPC, 186 rushing yards, 2 rushing TD's, 72 return yards.

Sammy Watkins: 10 TD's, 1144 yards (104 per game), 78 receptions, 14.7 YPC, 8 rushing yards, 176 return yards.

Mike Evans: 12 TD's, 1314 yards (119.5 per game), 61 receptions, 21.5 YPC, 0 rushing yards, 0 return yards.

So, realistically, the stats aren't close. With the exception of Evans' admittedly impressive Yards Per Catch, Cooks is a huge leader. Whether that is enough to overcome the innate advantages that come with being at Texas A&M (or Clemson, I suppose) over being at Oregon State, I don't know. A big game this weekend would be a huge help.

If Cooks won, he would be the second Beaver to win the award, following Mike Hass in 2005. Marqise Lee of USC won the award last year, but he did not even make the semifinal list this year.

Like a Chicago election, vote early and vote often!