Fordham senior running back Kirwin Watson (Sunrise, FL/St. Thomas Aquinas) has been selected by committee to participate in the inaugural I-AA College Football All-Star Classic. He joins Fordham teammate Kevin Eakin (Coral Springs, FL/Douglass), a senior quarterback, in representing the Rams at the first ever I-AA All-Star Game.
The game will be played at Lockhart Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale, FL on Tuesday evening, December 30th, and will be televised nationally by TFN, The Football Network, which began operations this fall as a 24/7, year-round cable network devoted to all forms of football programming. TFN created the game in cooperation with 13 I-AA conferences.
The selected players are seniors who were chosen by a committee of coaches, administrators and media from the conferences.
The teams will compete as two squads named for Eddie Robinson, the legendary coach of I-AA powerhouse Grambling State University, and the late Walter Payton, a product of I-AA Jackson State who went on to star for the Chicago Bears. The players will be divided into the two teams as the game approaches in order to form evenly competitive teams.
Watson, a team captain who was named preseason All-America by The Sports Network and The Football Gazette as well as the Patriot League Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, is having another stellar year for the Rams. On the season he has rushed 208 times for 1,012 yards and 13 touchdowns. It is the third straight year in which Watson has rushed for more than 1,000 yards, as he becomes the first Ram to compile multiple 1,000-yard rushing seasons.
Watson finished tenth in the voting last year for the Walter Payton Award, presented to the top I-AA Offensive Player. He was also named Third Team All-America by The Sports Network, the Associated Press, and the Football Gazette last fall.
A First Team All-Patriot League selection the past two seasons, Watson is the most prolific running back in Fordham football history. Last year, he set school records for rushing yards in a season when he gained 1,467 yards on 285 carries. The 1,467 yards was the fourth best total in Patriot League history.
Watson has also broken school records this fall, becoming Fordham's all-time leading career rusher with 4,152 career rushing yards on 839 carries with 41 touchdowns, all Fordham career records. He also holds the Fordham school record with 18 100-yard rushing games in his career and he tied a school and Patriot League record with five rushing touchdowns in the win over New Haven on October 18th.
In the Patriot League, Watson broke the career rushing touchdown record of 40 set by Lehigh's Erick Torain set from 1987-90 while ranking third on the league's career rushing list in yards and carries.
