Dec. 1, 2008

After big performances in leading their team to victories last week, standouts from three different schools have earned Player of the Week honors. Rice sophomore TE James Casey won Offensive Player of the Week honors for the third time this season, Southern Miss junior LB Gerald McRath took the defensive award and UAB senior K/P Swayze Waters took his second special teams honor this year.

Casey broke the C-USA single-season reception record, while running for, throwing for and catching a touchdown pass in the same game for the second time this year to lead the Owls to a 56-42 victory over Houston and give the Owls their first nine win season since 1953. Casey was responsible for five of the Owls eight touchdowns on the day. He tied his career-high with 12 catches, to run his season total to 104, three better than the old league mark of 101 set by Arnold Jackson. He finished with 172 yards (his sixth 100-yard game this year) and tied his career high with three touchdown receptions. He also scored on one-yard run, and threw a three-yard TD pass to Taylor Wardlow, matching his effort against Tulsa by throwing, catching and running for a TD in the same game.

McRath tallied a team-high eight tackles (six solos), while tallying a half sack, 1.5 TFLs for 20 yards, a forced fumble and one pass breakup in a win at SMU. He led or tied for the team lead in tackles for the eighth time this season. McRath is the league's top tackler with 126 stops. He has eight or more tackles in 10 games this season.

Waters was successful on all five of his field goal attempts and accounted for all of the game's points in UAB's 15-0 road victory over UCF. Waters hit from distances of 40, 43, 22, 36 and 28 yards against the Knights as he improved his season numbers to 19-of-24 field goals and an accuracy mark of 79.2 percent, tops among C-USA kickers. Waters finished his Blazer career with 50 field goals in 64 attempts for a 78.1 percentage. He also went over the 200-point mark for his career, finishing with 202.