Chattanooga, TN (Sports Network) - Eastern Washington quarterback Erik Meyer was named the 19th winner of the Walter Payton Award tonight at the Division I-AA College Football Awards held in Chattanooga, TN on the eve of the I-AA national championship game.

Meyer threw for 3,616 passing yards in the regular season, and directed an Eastern Washington offense that finished second nationally in passing yardage (337.6 ypg) and third in total offense (477.7 ypg). Meyer threw for 26 touchdowns and five interceptions, and added four touchdowns in a playoff loss to Northern Iowa to finish with a 169.3 passer rating. That rating helped Meyer finish with a 166.47 career passer rating, which broke the I-AA record of 166.27 set by 1995 Payton Award winner Dave Dickenson. Meyer also helped the Eagles earn the Big Sky’s automatic berth to the playoffs.

Meyer performed well throughout the season and led the Eagles to at least 23 points in every contest. Meyer threw for more than 300 yards in the first three games of the season, though the Eagles started 1-2. After wins against Northern Arizona and Portland State, Meyer made his defining mark on the season at Montana. Meyer put on a near-flawless show with a 28-for-40, 395-yard, five-touchdown effort in a 34-20 win. Meyer had huge individual efforts in a win at Sacramento State (470 yards, 3 TD) and loss at Cal Poly (428 yards, 3 TD). In a must-win game, Meyer orchestrated a 35-14 win against Montana State (254 total yards, 2 TD) that put the Eagles in position to claim a share of the Big Sky title and the conference’s automatic berth to the postseason

Meyer and the Eagles eclipsed the 30-point mark in eight of their 11 games. With his third strong season in a row, Meyer finished the regular season with a gaudy 9,874 yards passing, 80 touchdowns and only 17 interceptions in his career to go along with the two playoff berths. He surpassed the 10,000-yard mark in passing yardage in the playoff loss at UNI.

In the closet race for first place in the history of the Payton Award, Meyer received 33 first-place votes and 333 points from the panel of 113 I-AA sports information directors and selected media. Following right behind was New Hampshire quarterback Ricky Santos, who picked up 31 first-place votes and collected 328 total points to finish just five points back of Meyer. Brown running back Nick Hartigan finished third with 11 first-place votes and 205 points.

The Walter Payton Award was established in 1987 by The Sports Network.

2005 WALTER PAYTON AWARD VOTING
NAME (SCHOOL)    1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Total
Erik Meyer (Eastern Washington)  33 18 17 16 13 333
Ricky Santos (New Hampshire)  31 27 11 13 6 328
Nick Hartigan (Brown)   11 16 15 14 13 205
Bruce Eugene (Grambling State)  16 12 13 10 10 197
Barrick Nealy (Tennessee State)  6 5 10 6 8 100
Richie Williams (Appalachian State) 5 6 11 3 11 99
David Ball (New Hampshire)  1 4 7 17 8 84
Joe Rubin (Portland State)  0 5 9 8 7 70
Travis Lulay (Montana State)  4 3 4 8 5 65
Laurent Robinson (Illinois State) 1 2 6 4 4 43
Jermaine Austin (Georgia Southern) 1 5 0 3 7 38
Joel Sambursky (Southern Illinois) 1 4 2 4 3 38
Steve Silva (Holy Cross)  1 2 4 1 9 36
Ingle Martin (Furman)   2 3 1 1 3 30
Omar Cuff (Delaware)   0 1 3 3 2 21
Lex Hilliard (Montana)   0 0 0 1 2 4
*Josh Johnson (San Diego)  0 0 0 1 0 2
*Eric Kimble (Eastern Washington) 0 0 0 0 1 1
*Scott Phaydavong (Drake)  0 0 0 0 1 1

*write-in vote