TCU football’s Moehrig is the program’s first player to win the Jim Thorpe Award
Trevon Moehrig will be taking some hardware with him to the NFL.
The TCU safety was named the Paycom Jim Thorpe Award winner on Thursday night, becoming the first player in program history to win the award given to the nation’s top defensive back.
“In 2018 he trusted TCU to help develop him,” TCU safeties coach Paul Gonzales posted on Twitter. “3yrs later hard work & dreams have met & he is now the top DB in the country! Love ya g!”
Along with Moehrig, the other finalists for the Thorpe Award included Central Florida’s Richie Grant and Alabama’s Patrick Surtain II. The award is run by the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame and the winner is chosen by members of the National College Football Awards Association (NCFAA), an Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in-house award committee, former Jim Thorpe Award recipients and sportswriters and college football journalists throughout the country.
The Thorpe Award commemorative banquet is scheduled to be held March 30 in Oklahoma City.
The last Big 12 player to win the award was Texas’ Aaron Ross in 2006.
Moehrig is the seventh TCU player to win a national award and the first since former quarterback Trevone Boykin won the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award in 2014. The last defensive player to win a national award was defensive end Jerry Hughes, the 2009 winner of the Lott IMPACT Trophy and Ted Hendricks Award.
Moehrig started all 10 games this season, finishing with the third-most tackles (47) on the team. He had two interceptions and nine pass breakups, earning All-Big 12 first-team honors for the second consecutive season.
Moehrig also earned All-America honors from multiple outlets, including the Sporting News, The Associated Press and ESPN.
Moehrig had a breakout 2019 season as he was the highest-graded safety in the country by Pro Football Focus. He allowed just two of 17 contested targets to be caught in 2019, per PFF, and finished with four interceptions and 11 pass breakups.
Moehrig has been a part of nine takeaways (six interceptions, two forced fumbles and one fumble recovery) over the last two seasons, which is tied for second nationally.
Next up for Moehrig is the NFL Draft as he announced he’d be an early entrant last weekend. Moehrig is regarded as arguably the top safety prospect in the 2021 class.
This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 8:06 PM.
