Barclay Named Wake Forest's Most Valuable Player
11/20/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 20, 2005
Winston-Salem, NC - The Wake Forest football program saluted its senior class and honored several student-athletes with individual awards at its postseason banquet on Sunday night at Bridger Field House.
Senior Chris Barclay was named the team's Most Valuable Player in a vote by his teammates. Junior Josh Gattis won the Most Outstanding Back Award, senior Goryal Scales earned the Bill George Award (best lineman/linebacker) and senior Ryan Plackemeier was selected the winner of the program's first ever Most Outstanding Special Teams Player Award.
Barclay joins Norman Snead (1959-60) and Brian Piccolo (1963-64) as the only Wake Forest players to win the Most Valuable Player award in consecutive seasons.
The native of Louisville, Ky., carried 218 times for 1,127 yards and 10 touchdown in 2005. He also added 381 receiving and return yards. Barclay led the ACC in rushing yards (1,127), rushing attempts (218) and all-purpose yards (1,508). He etched his name into the Wake Forest, ACC and NCAA record books. Barclay leaves Wake Forest as the team's all-time leader in seven major categories including yards (4,032), scoring (240 points), rushing touchdowns (40), total touchdowns (40), all-purpose yards (4,930), 200-yard rushing games (3) and 1,000-yard rushing seasons (3). His four touchdown performance against East Carolina this season, tied a school record.
Gattis, a native of Durham, N.C., had five interceptions to lead the Deacons and tie for the ACC lead. He returned two of those interceptions for touchdowns, only one of three players nationally to score a pair of touchdowns on interceptions. Gattis had 13 special teams tackles, tied for the most in the conference. He had 12 pass break-ups to tie for the team lead and rank third in the ACC. Gattis finished the season as the team's second-leading tackler with 72 stops.
Scales, a local product from Carver High School in Winston-Salem, N.C., was the team's captain and one of only three players to start every game on defense. Regarded as the team's top run stopper who was often double teamed by Deacon opponents, Scales recorded 26 tackles. He had two tackles for loss and one sack.
Plackemeier leads the nation in average yards per punt and net punting. He leaves Wake Forest as the the school's, the ACC's and the NCAA's all-time leading punter with at least 200 attempts. The native of Bonsall, Calif., shattered his own Wake Forest single season punting average record with 47.2 yards per punt. He punted 67 times for 3,165 yards and dropped 20 punts inside the 20-yardline. Plackemeier had 13 punts of at least 60 yards, three punts of at least 70 yards and an 82-yarder against NC State. The 82-yarder was the fourth-longest punt in ACC history, the longest since 1989. At Georgia Tech, Plackemeier broke a 52-year old ACC single game record by averaging 56.4 yards per punt (five punts for 282 yards).