UNC’s Matt Merletti, a senior from Cleveland, has earned Atlantic Coast Conference Defensive Back of the Week for his play against Virginia. Merletti made seven tackles and intercepted two passes in Carolina’s 28-17 win over the Cavaliers. Merletti’s two interceptions came on Virginia’s final two possessions to help the Tar Heels secure the victory.<\/p>\n
Clemson sophomore quarterback Tajh Boyd and freshman wide receiver Sammy Watkins were two others of the seven players announced as the ACC Players of the Week. Boyd, the ACC quarterback of the week, tallied 416 yards of total offense, the fourth most in Clemson history in the Tigers\u2019 38-24 win over defending national champion Auburn. His teammate Watkins picked up honors for both the receiver and the rookie of the week for his performance in the game. Watkins caught 10 passes for 155 yards and two touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Other winners are listed below.<\/p>\n
OFFENSIVE LINEMAN \u2013 Omoregie Uzzi, Georgia Tech, OG, Jr., 6-3, 300, Lithonia, Ga.<\/p>\n
Uzzi and the Yellow Jacket offensive line dominated the line of scrimmage in Georgia Tech\u2019s 66-24 win over Kansas. The Jackets broke an NCAA record for yards per rushing attempt (12.1), broke an ACC record for rushing yards (604) and smashed a school record for total offense (768). Tech allowed only one sack on the day.<\/p>\n
DEFENSIVE LINEMAN \u2013 Bjoern Werner, Florida State, DE, So., 6-4, 273, Berlin, Germany<\/p>\n
Werner was a pivotal performer from his left end position as the Seminoles held the Sooners to 310 total yards; their lowest output since the 2009 season. A first-year starter, Werner posted a career-high six tackles (5 solos, 1 assist), which included two tackles for loss and a sack of OU quarterback Landry Jones. He was also credited with one quarterback hurry. Werner leads FSU with 3.5 tackles for loss and 2 sacks this season.<\/p>\n
LINEBACKER \u2013 Luke Kuechly, Boston College, LB, Jr., 6-3, 237, Cincinnati, Ohio<\/p>\n
Junior LB Luke Kuechly recorded 23 tackles in Boston College\u2019s 20-19 loss to Duke, marking a career high and tying Stephen Boyd for second on the school\u2019s all-time single-game list. Boyd recorded 23 tackles against Virginia Tech in 1993. The 23 tackles ties for fourth most tackles in a BC game (three players recorded 25). Saturday\u2019s game marked the third game of Kuechly\u2019s career with 20 or more tackles. The Cincinnati, Ohio native previously recorded 21 tackles at Duke (2010) and 20 tackles at NC State (2010). Kuechly now has 399 career tackles. He is positioned to become the fifth Eagle and 32nd player from the ACC to ever record 400 career tackles. <\/p>\n
SPECIALIST \u2013 Dustin Hopkins, Florida State, K, Jr., 6-2, 190, Houston, Texas<\/p>\n
Hopkins extended his streak of consecutive field goal conversions to 13, connecting from 53 and 46 yards against Oklahoma. Hopkins\u2019 53-yarder was the second-longest of his career. He also helped keep the Sooners bottled off by continuing his kickoff prowess. Hopkins kicked off four times and registered two touchbacks. Oklahoma\u2019s longest return was 18 yards and they never began a series following a kickoff beyond its own 20-yard line. Hopkins is 6-of-6 on field goal attempts this season and has converted all 13 of his PAT attempts. In addition to his streak of 13 consecutive successful field goals, Hopkins has now converted 99 consecutive PATs and is just nine shy of tying the Florida State record held by Derek Schmidt since 1986.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNC’s Matt Merletti, a senior from Cleveland, has earned Atlantic Coast Conference Defensive Back of the Week for his play against Virginia. Merletti made seven…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,1,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-stories","category-uncategorized","category-north-carolina-tar-heels","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-1-id","wpcat-80-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2199,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197\/revisions\/2199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}