Utah State football linebacker Asher Cunningham has added two awards to his trophy case this week. The junior transfer from Elon was named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week on Monday. Then, on Tuesday morning, it was announced that he is the Walter Camp Foundation National Defensive Player of the Week.
Cunningham is the second Utah State player to earn a weekly Pac-12 award in football and the first-ever Aggie to receive a weekly honor from the Walter Camp Foundation.
These awards come in the wake of an all-time performance by Cunningham in Utah State’s 17-16 win last Friday over Washington State. On the one hand, his 17 tackles, 2.0 tackles for loss and 0.5 sacks were critical in shutting out the Cougars in the second half. On the other hand, his two forced fumbles and one fumble recovery handed the Aggies’ offense two short fields, which they took full advantage of with a pair of touchdowns that rallied USU from a 16-3 halftime deficit.
It was a rare performance, combining impact plays that forced turnovers with the every-down dominance of his tackle tally. Cunningham is one of just 15 FBS players since at least 2005 to record at least 17 total tackles along with two forced fumbles. Another one of those 15 players is a fellow Aggie, David Woodward, who recorded 24 tackles and a pair of forced fumbles in 2019.
Cunningham spoke with the media on Friday, directly after the win. He said, “I’m proud of my guys. I did my part, but they also did their part,” regarding the eventual winning effort. When asked about the second of his forced fumbles, the one that he also recovered, Cunningham described it as a “see-ball-get-ball moment.”
“I just played my job, executed what I needed to do,” Cunningham said. “And then our defense, we just swarmed to the ball. That’s what I like about most of our defense, how we just swarm to the ball. So they have nowhere to go, nowhere to sneak around.”
