USC All-American CB Adoree' Jackson was named the 2016 Thorpe Award winner at the Home Depot College Football Awards Show in Atlanta tonight.Click here for the full release!
Jackson is just the second Trojan to win the Thorpe Award, which is named after legendary multi-sport athlete Jim Thorpe. While Troy Polamalu (2002) and Taylor Mays (2008) were finalists for USC, Mark Carrier (1989) is the only other Trojan to take home the trophy.
This year, Jackson beat out Michigan's Jourdan Lewis and LSU's Tre'Davious White to win the award.
Jackson earned the trophy by posting 51 tackles (including 2 for losses of 4 yards), a team-best 11 pass deflections, a team-high 4 INT and a team-best 2 fumble recoveries on defense in 2016. He also returned 22 kickoffs for 671 yards (30.5 avg) with 2 TD and 19 punts for 302 yards (15.9 avg) with 2 TD on special teams. During his 13 offensive snaps this season, he had 5 carries for 49 yards (9.8 avg) and a 52-yard TD reception. He currently is second nationally in punt return TD, second in kickoff return TD, third in punt returns, sixth in kickoff returns, 22nd in passes defended and 25th in fumbles recovered.
Like Thorpe, Jackson is a multi-sport athlete, having also won the Pac-12 long jump competition in 2015 and 2016 and twice placing fifth in the nation in NCAAs.
Upon the announcement, Trojans such as Matt Leinart, Marqise Lee, Kevon Seymour, Terrell Thomas and more took to Twitter to congratulate Jackson.
