UCLA Football: Kaimi Fairbairn Wins Lou Groza Award!

John Christian Ka’iminoeauloameka’ikeokekumupa’a Fairbairn* of UCLA Football is your 2015 Lou Groza Award winner! *(aka Kaimi Fairbairn)

The Lou Groza Award goes to the best kicker in college football. Fairbairn is the second UCLA Football player to win this award; Kai Forbath won it in 2009. Fairbairn kicked 20 field goals on 23 attempts (87%), with a long of 60 yards. He also went a perfect 44 for 44 on extra points. He led UCLA in scoring with 104 points.

The runners up were Daniel Carlson of Auburn and Jake Elliott of Memphis. Fairbairn was also named to the Walter Camp All-America first team today, one of the five All-America teams that go toward determining consensus/unanimous All-America status.

With these honors, Fairbairn joins former Bruin linebacker Eric Kendricks with the odd distinction of having won the national award for being the best player at their position (Groza Award & Butkus Award) and been named first-team All-Americans while being named only second team all-conference.

Pac-12 voters, get your act together; it is by definition impossible to be the best player at your position nationwide without being the best at your position in your conference.

Previous Articles on Fairbairn:

• In Defense of Kaimi Fairbairn – 6.16.15
• Kaimi Fairbairn Sets Field Goal Record – 10.23.15
• A Toast to Kaimi Fairbairn – 10.31.15

Next: UCLA Football: Top 10 Quarterbacks of All-Time

We have long waved a banner for Fairbairn here at Go Joe Bruin. He got off to a rough start, and never really won back the fan base’s love and support. That reflects poorly on all of us. We’ve been saying it all year, but now it’s definitive – UCLA has been lucky to have Kaimi Fairbairn as our kicker for the past four years.

Go Bruins!