(UHND.com) — Two weeks ago against BYU Brady Quinn was nominated for the Cingular/ABC Sports Player of the Week and now this week Tommy Zbikowski is nominated for the same award after his performance against Tennessee. Zbikowski returned an interception and a punt return for a touchdown against the Vols.
With a 14-3 lead in the 2nd quarter, Zbikowski lined up to return a Tennessee punt and took it 78 yards for a touchdown to push the Irish ahead 21-3. Zbikowski used his speed and vision to find the seem and race to the end zone without needing to run through tackles as he had to when he returned a punt 60 yards for a touchdown against USC.
It looked liked the punt return was going to break the game wide open, but the Vols battled back and were down 13 points trying to make a late rally when Zbikowski found the end zone again to seal the deal on a 33 yard interception return.
Zbikowski picked Eric Ainge off at the 33 and used his nose for the end zone to open a 20 point lead on Tennessee. Tommy Z ran through a couple tackle attempts during his 33 yard scamper for his 2nd interception return in as many games.
His performance against Tennessee gives Zbikowski 4 touchdowns in the last 3 games — 2 interception returns (BYU, Tennessee) and 2 punt returns (USC, Tennessee).
The other nominees for this week’s Cingular Player of the Week include Tamba Hall of Penn State, Andre Brown of NC State and Florida quarterback Chris Leak. Hall had 4 sacks and 5 tackles for loss in Penn State’s 21 point win over Wisconsin. Brown ran for 179 yards in NC State’s upset over Florida State. Leak accounted for 5 touchdowns in Florida’s double overtime thriller against Vanderbilt.
CIngular Wireless users can vote for Tommy by registering to vote by text messaging “VOTE” to 87654. Once registered, the nominees should be text messaged to you to vote.
