Three Memphis Tigers named to Honor Society

Hall, Taylor, Woodard recognized for efforts on and off the field

gotigersgo.com MEMPHIS – A trio of University of Memphis football players was named to the 2020 NFF Hampshire Honor Society it was announced by the National Football Foundation, Wednesday. In its 14th season, the honor society is made up of football players from all divisions who maintained a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or better throughout their college careers.

Austin Hall, Patrick Taylor and Dustin Woodard are the Memphis honorees on this year's list. This marks just the third time in program history that Memphis has had three honorees into the honor society in a season. In 2009 and 2014, Memphis also had a trio of honorees. Drew Kyser was named to the honor society last year.

Hall, Taylor and Woodard become the 20th, 21st and 22nd honorees in the Hampshire Honor Society for Memphis.

Austin Hall – Capped his Memphis career ranked 10th in the Memphis record book with 33.5 tackles for loss … Made 51 total starts over four seasons … Finished with 279 total tackles (194 solo) and added 25 PBU, 11 QB Hurries, seven fumble recoveries, five interceptions, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries for a touchdown … Was a four-time All-American Athletic Conference allacademic team honoree and was a 2017 and 2018 CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree … Dean's List for three semesters and graduated in August of 2018 with an undergraduate degree in criminal justice … Began working on a master's degree in public administration in the fall of 2018 … 2019 American Athletic Conference honorable mention … Two-time AAC defensive player of the week (Oct. 17, 2016, Oct. 16, 2017) …. Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week (Oct. 17, 2017) and Paycom Jim Thorpe Player of the Week (Oct. 18, 2017) …. Played at the Will position in 2019 after two seasons at the star hybrid position in 2017 and 2018 … 3.576 GPA Criminal Justice/Public Administration.

Patrick Taylor, Jr. – Finished his Memphis second in program history with 36 rushing touchdowns and third with 2,884 rushing yards … His 5.4 yards per rush average for his career ranks tied for fifth in program history … Tied for fourth with 11 100-yard rushing games and ranked fifth with 3,322 all-purpose yards … Leaves sharing the record for rushing touchdowns in a game (4 vs Houston, 2017) … Appeared in 45 games at Memphis with four starts while playing with teammates Darrell Henderson (Los Angeles Rams) and Tony Pollard (Dallas Cowboys) … Had nine multi-TD games and finished with 55 career catches for 434 yards and three touchdowns … 2019 AFCA Good Works Team nominee … Three-time American Athletic Conference All-Academic team honoree … Started senior season on the Doak Walker and Maxwell Award watch lists before suffering an injury in Memphis' season-opening win over Ole Miss that forced him to miss the next eight games … Returned in the home win over Houston 76 days later … Posted three rushing touchdowns the next week in a road win at USF, carrying the ball 17 times for 95 yards … Finished with eight carries for 50 yards and a touchdown in the 84th Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic … 3.273 GPA … Management major.

Dustin Woodard – Appeared in 54 career games at Memphis, including 52 consecutive starts … Tied the program record for most starts by an offensive lineman … Holds the school record for most games played by an offensive lineman … Moved from left guard (2016 and 2017) to right guard (2018) to center (2019) in his fouryear Memphis career … Blocked for four of the top five offenses in program history … Four offenses piled up more than 27,000 yards (27,060 total/6,765 per season/501.1 per game) … Blocked for All-Americans Darrell Henderson (Los Angeles Rams) and Anthony Miller (Chicago Bears) and FWAA Freshman of the Year Kenneth Gainwell (2019) … Provided pass protection for Brady White, an All-American Athletic Conference second team honoree who became the second quarterback in program history to pass for 4,000 yards (4,014) to go with 33 TD, both second in program history … 2019 CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree … 2019 Senior CLASS Award finalist … 2019 William V.

Trophy semifinalist … Two-time American All-Academic Team honoree and Dean's List … Twotime all-conference honoree (2018 first team at right guard and 2019 second team at center) … 3.411 GPA … Management major.

Austin Hall

Patrick Taylor Jr.

Dustin Woodard