Banks named "Player of the Year"

With the season now complete the post-season awards are being handed out and Iowa quarterback Brad Banks received one of the biggest today by being named the Associated Press college football player of the year. Banks led the Hawks to a first ever 11-win season and an 8-0 Big Ten Conference mark and threw for more than 23-hundred yards with 25 touchdowns and just four interceptions. Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz says over 12 games he doesn’t know who has played better and done more for his team. Ferentz says Banks was at his best in big games at Penn State and Michigan. Ferentz says they haven’t done anything to pad Banks’ stats, as evidence, the 10 passes they threw in the Northwestern game.Banks is one of the leading contenders for the Heisman Trophy and Ferentz says he plans to be in New York for the presentation along with Iowa athletic director Bob Bowlsby.The third-ranked Hawkeyes will play fifth-rated U-S-C in the January second Orange Bowl.