Football | 11/23/2015 1:17:00 PM
Moon Township, Pa. – Redshirt freshman wide receiver
Kyle Buss of the
Robert Morris University football team was named a finalist for the
STATS National Freshman Player of the Year award the organization announced Monday.
Buss is the lone student-athlete from the Northeast Conference to be tabbed a finalist this season. He is also the first Colonial to ever be named a finalist for this award, which is being given out for the fifth time in 2015.
Buss has surpassed at least six RMU freshman records en route to this selection, and his accomplishments have not been far off past Colonial greats, freshman or otherwise.
Buss finished the season with 50 receptions for 742 yards, an average of 14.8 per reception. He ranks second nationally in the FCS in receiving yards among freshmen and third among rookies in receptions per game (4.55). He became just the third Colonial ever to catch at least 50 passes in a season and is also only the third to surpass 700 receiving yards in a year. Buss became the first Colonial ever to catch at least nine passes more than once in a season, and he was the fourth Colonial, and second rookie, to post at least three 100-yard receiving efforts in a season.
Buss had a solid start to the campaign with 74 receiving yards against Dayton, a team headed to the FCS playoffs, but he really broke out with a nine-catch, 108-yard performance in a Homecoming win that featured his first collegiate touchdown. Buss tallied 91 receiving yards against defending champion Sacred Heart in the middle of October and really broke out at the end of the month. He caught eight passes for 160 yards at Central Connecticut State and then hauled in nine catches for 138 yards the next week against East Tennessee State.
Buss' 160 receiving yards against CCSU rank as the sixth-highest figure in single-game RMU history and is the best such mark by a Colonial in over eight years. It also marked the best such figure by any NEC rookie since at least 2007. Buss' 84-yard touchdown catch against the Bucs, which came late in the fourth quarter and proved to be the game winner, stands as the longest reception by a freshman in RMU history.
During the 2015 campaign, Buss topped previous RMU rookie bests for single-season receptions, single-season receiving yards, single-season receptions per game, single-game receptions, single-game receiving yards and longest reception.
After the Central Connecticut game, Buss was tabbed Honorable Mention National Freshman of the Week by
STATS in addition to claiming NEC Rookie of the Week honors.
Buss put together his noteworthy rookie season even though RMU faced four of the best 16 teams in the FCS in regard to passing efficiency defense.
A national panel of sports information and media relations directors, broadcasters, writers and other dignitaries will cast ballots, based on the regular season, to select a winner for the award. The winner will be honored at the
STATS FCS Awards Banquet and Presentation on the eve of the Jan. 9 FCS championship game in Frisco, Texas.
