Tanner piles up pre-season accolades

The Guaranty Bank SMU Athletic Forum announced today candidates for the 2009 Doak Walker Award and Middle Tennessee's Phillip Tanner is one of the 45 nominees. The award is presented annually to the nation's top college running back.

Tanner is coming off his best year as a Blue Raider by leading the team in rushing to go along with 15 rushing touchdowns to rank third all-time at MT. The senior also had 102 total points which went down as the fourth most in a single-season.

Tanner joins Reggie Arnold (Arkansas State) and DuJuan Harris (Troy) as the only representatives from the Sun Belt Conference.