Toledo quarterback John Alan Richter has been named to the Davey O’Brien Great 8 for the second time this season, the University of Toledo announced Monday, October 26, after his performance in the Rockets’ 45-38 victory over Western Michigan on Saturday.
Richter completed 29 of 41 passes for 391 yards — the second most of his career — and three touchdowns with one interception against Western Michigan. He also ran for a touchdown, accounting for four scores in a high-scoring Mid-American Conference win.
The Davey O’Brien Great 8 are the national quarterback-of-the-week finalists. The winner from this week’s group will be revealed on Tuesday, putting Richter in line for a further national honor if voters and the award’s selectors go his way.
It is the latest in a run of recognition for the Toledo quarterback. Last week Richter was added to the Manning Award Watch List, another national quarterback honor that tracks candidates through the season.
His first Great 8 selection came after a career day in September, when he led Toledo’s overtime comeback against Temple. For that performance he was also named the Mid-American Conference Offensive Player of the Week, a Davey O’Brien Great 8 recipient and a Manning Star of the Week.
Saturday’s 391-yard outing sits just behind his career best, and it came in a game Toledo needed to win in the conference race — a 45-38 result in which the Rockets’ offense had to keep answering Western Michigan scores.
The Great 8 honor is administered in connection with the Davey O’Brien Award, one of college football’s national quarterback awards. Being named twice in one season puts Richter among a small group of quarterbacks nationally who have repeated on the weekly list this fall, and it keeps Toledo’s offense in the national conversation heading into November.
Richter and the Rockets now wait for Tuesday’s Great 8 winner announcement, and turn back to a MAC schedule in which Toledo’s passing game, on this evidence, remains its sharpest weapon.