Mizzou Football senior defensive lineman Michael Sam (Hitchcock, Texas) has been named the Southeastern Conference’s Defensive Lineman Player of the Week for the second week in a row, the league office announced on Monday. Sam picked up his second consecutive 3.0-sack performance in the Tigers’ 51-28 win at Vanderbilt in their SEC opener. The Mizzou DE made two of his sacks on 4th-down plays in the fourth quarter as he recorded five total stops in the victory.
The second honor for Sam marks the first time since 2007 that a Mizzou defender has been recognized with a weekly conference honor twice in one season. Pig Brown earned Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week on Sept. 4 and Oct. 22 of that year.
Sam’s 3.0 sacks tie the NCAA single-game high through Oct. 5 this season, and Sam is the only player in the nation so far to record 3.0 sacks in a game twice. The feat has been accomplished 16 times overall across the country, with Sam as the only repeat performer on the single-game list.
Sam’s recognition is the fourth Defensive Line Player of the Week honor earned by a Mizzou player from the SEC after junior DL Markus Golden (St. Louis, Mo.) and junior DL Kony Ealy (New Madrid, Mo.) earned the award for their defensive scores in the Sept. 7 win over Toledo and the Sept. 21 win at Indiana, respectively.
No. 25 Mizzou (5-0) hits the road for a Top 25 matchup at No. 7 Georgia on Saturday, Oct. 12, with an 11 a.m. kickoff on ESPN.