The All-Big 12 Conference football teams and individual award winners have been announced and Montgomery County’s very own Johnny Hodges has earned two awards. Selections are made by the league’s 10 head coaches, who are not permitted to vote for their own players.
Hodges, a 6’2, 240 pound junior linebacker from Darnestown, who graduated from Quince Orchard High School in 2019, is a starting linebacker for the TCU Horned Frogs– currently ranked 3rd in the country. He has been named to the 2022 All-Big 12 Second Team and won the award for “Defensive Newcomer of the Year.” Hodges was also recently named the Big 12 Defensive Player of the week after he had a team-best and season-high 11 tackles, more than double the next-closest Horned Frog, to lead a strong defensive effort in then No. 4 TCU’s 17-10 win over then No. 18 Texas. The junior LB had 1.5 tackles for loss as part of his 11 stops and combined on a tackle for no gain on a 4th-and-1 Bijan Robinson rush on Texas’ opening series to set the tone for the game.
Hodges played at Navy for two seasons before transferring to TCU this year. Last year, he was fourth on the team at Navy with 50 tackles, despite playing just nine games. Per a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article, Hodges said he “probably reached out to 60 college coaches, every Power Five. Not a single one responded.” Except for Northwestern. “Northwestern said I wasn’t good enough,” Hodges said when speaking about the 1-9 Northwestern football program, as he starts for the 3rd ranked team in the country that took a chance on him.
A complete list of awards can be found here.
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