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Tallahassee, FL – The Tallahassee Quarterback Club (TQC) Foundation, Inc., the Florida-based creator and sponsor of the prestigious Biletnikoff Award, announces the finalists for the 2023 Biletnikoff Award. The secure and confidential electronic voting by the distinguished members of the Biletnikoff Award National Selection Committee was conducted from November 20th through November 25th, and certified by a prominent CPA firm.

The Biletnikoff Award annually recognizes the college football season’s outstanding FBS receiver. Any player, regardless of position (wide receiver, tight end, slot back, and running back) who catches a pass is eligible for the award. As such, the Biletnikoff Award recognizes college football’s outstanding receiver, not merely college football’s outstanding wide receiver.

The semifinalists, finalists, and award recipient are selected by the highly distinguished Biletnikoff Award National Selection Committee, a group of 650 prominent college football journalists, commentators, announcers, Biletnikoff Award winners, and other former receivers. Foundation trustees do not vote and have never voted. For a list of voters, please see BiletnikoffAward.com/voters.

The Biletnikoff Award candidate eligibility and voting criteria, transparently explicit and detailed, are available for review at BiletnikoffAward.com/criteria.

Recently, the Tallahassee Quarterback Club Foundation opened the 2023 FanVote. Every fan may vote once daily on the Biletnikoff Award FanVote page. The aggregate fan tally will be counted as one official vote to determine semi-finalists, finalists (three receivers), and the winner. In the closest contest in years, the FanVote tally provided the one-vote margin of victory for 2013 winner Brandin Cooks of Oregon State.

The correlation between Biletnikoff Award winners and stardom in the National Football League is nearly uniformly consistent. Past Biletnikoff Award winners include Calvin Johnson, Randy Moss, Michael Crabtree, Amari Cooper, Golden Tate, Brandin Cooks, the late Terry Glenn, Ja’Marr Chase, and Larry Fitzgerald.

The 2023 Biletnikoff Award winner will be formally introduced by his school’s head coach and presented the Biletnikoff Award trophy by TQC Foundation Founding Trustee and Chairman Walter Manley, Fred Biletnikoff, and the 1996 Heisman Trophy winner and national champion Danny Wuerffel, keynote speaker, at the black-tie Biletnikoff Award Banquet & Celebration at the Dunlap Champions Club, at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee on Saturday, March 9, 2024. The banquet was hailed by 2014 keynote speaker Dick Vermeil, as well as by 2013 keynoter Larry Csonka, as “the best banquet in college sports.”

The banquet has featured distinguished keynoters of profound character and accomplishments including the late Bart Starr, Dick Vermeil, the late Floyd Little, Larry Csonka, Steve Largent, Mike Ditka, the late Don Shula, the late Dan Reeves, Archie Manning, Ron Jaworski, Gene Stallings, Bob Griese, Bill Curry, the late Bobby Bowden, Jim Kelly, Jerry Kramer, Joe Theismann, Dan Fouts, Chad Hennings, Lou Holtz, Aaron Taylor, Archie Griffin, and Drew Pearson.

The 501(c)(3) TQC Foundation’s charitable mission is the provision of college and vocational scholarships to North Florida high school seniors who have overcome significant challenges to achieve at the highest academic and extracurricular levels. Participation in sports is not a requirement, but does count as an extracurricular activity. The all-volunteer Foundation has provided over 300 scholarships with benefits of nearly five million dollars through 2023. TQC Foundation Chairman Manley, serving his 26th year as fundraising chairman, recently announced a goal of 10 million dollars to be awarded in scholarships by 2030, doubling the current aggregate total of $5 million awarded through 2023.

The 2023 Biletnikoff Award finalists are as follows (in alphabetical order):
(See below)

Marvin Harrison Jr. (WR), Ohio State
Malik Nabers (WR), LSU
Rome Odunze (WR), Washington

Given the invariably exceptional quality and outstanding season performances of the ten Biletnikoff Award semifinalists, selection as one of three finalists is a high honor and most notable achievement.

#13 LSU’s Malik Nabers leads all receivers nationally with 1,546 receiving yards on 86 receptions and is tied for 2nd in receptions for touchdowns with 14, while averaging 18 yards per reception. He tops all players in average receiving yards per game with 128.8. Nabers has played four currently AP ranked teams: #8 Alabama (10/171/1 TD), #9 Missouri (6/146/1 TD), #11 Ole Miss (8/102/0), and #4 FSU (6/67/0). Nabers had an impressive performance (6/122/2 TDs) in a win last game against Texas A&M.

#3 Washington’s Rome Odunze is fourth among all players with 1,326 receiving yards on 73 catches, with 15 TDs (13 by reception), while leading the other two finalists with an average of 18.2 yards per reception. He has played three currently AP ranked teams:

#5 Oregon (8/128/2 TDs), #21 Oregon State (7/106/2 TDs), and #14 Arizona (5/64/0), while also playing formerly ranked Utah (3/111/2 TDs). Odunze led the Huskies to a win over rival Washington State on Saturday by catching 7 passes for 120 yards and 2 TDs and he made the critical play of the game by running for 23 yards on 4th down, thereby setting up the winning field goal.

#6 Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr was 9th nationally in receiving yards with 1,211 on 67 receptions, 14 receiving TDs (tied for 2nd nationally and 15 TDs overall), averaging 18.1 yards per catch. Similarly, he is 9th in average receiving yards per game with 100.9. Harrison has played three currently AP ranked teams: #16 Notre Dame (3/32/0), #10 Penn State (11/162/1TD), and #2 Michigan (5/118/1 TD), his most recent game and in which he had a strong performance.

The name Biletnikoff is synonymous with the term receiver. Fred Biletnikoff, a member of the pro and college football halls of fame, was a consensus All-America receiver at Florida State University and an All-Pro receiver for the Oakland Raiders. He caught 589 passes for 8,974 yards and 76 touchdowns in his 14-year Raiders career from 1965 through 1978. Fred was the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XI.