Matt Weiner (@mattweiner20) – Football Beat Reporter
When three-star recruit Junior Fehoko committed to SJSU football in 2018 over Cal, Hawaii and Arizona he was taking a leap of faith. The Spartans were coming off a 2-11 season, each loss coming by an average of 32 points.
Fast-forward five years later and his leap of faith is now a leap of destiny:
Fehoko has become the 2022 Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year.
While he did reel one of the bigger prizes of the day, but certainly wasn’t the only one.
10 total Spartans honored
Nine other Spartans took home hardware and wide receiver Elijah Cooks, linebacker Kyle Harmon and defensive end Cade Hall landed first team selections as well.
Quarterback Chevan Cordeiro took home All-Mountain West Second Team after missing out on Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year to Fresno State’s Jake Haener.
Two of Cordeiro’s trusted targets, wide receiver Justin Lockhart and tight end Dominick Mazotti, got honorable mentions. Safeties Tre Jenkins and Chase Williams and cornerback Nehemiah Shelton received an honorable mention as well.
Of the 11 honorees, Fehoko and Harmon are the only ones to receive three-straight All-Mountain West First Team selections. This is Hall’s first since winning the Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year in 2020 and it’s Cooks’ first time winning the award.
Cordeiro also earned hardware for the first time since his 2020 honorable mention and was the first All-Mountain West selection for Mazotti and Lockhart.
Shelton and Jenkins have now been named an honorable selection two years in a row and it’s Williams first time taking home an All-Mountain West nod.
The wide array of honorees reflects the power of the transfer portal and the power of a defense sticking together through thick and thin.
Power of sticking to it
Of the six members of the defense honored, Williams was the only Spartan who hasn’t been a member of SJSU since 2018.
There have been 227 games played between Fehoko, Hall, Harmon, Jenkins and Shelton.
That chemistry together culminated into excellent seasons for each individual.
Hall was sixth in the Mountain West in sacks (7.5) and tackles for loss (12). His 25.5 career sacks are the fourth-most in Spartan history.
Harmon’s 94 total tackles was good for sixth in the conference and was a key contributor for SJSU’s defense, which allowed the second-least rushing yards in the Mountain West (122.6).
There were 14 passes deflected between Shelton and Jenkins, who manned a secondary that allowed the fourth-least passing yards (2,314).
Bless the transfer portal
Perhaps SJSU’s defensive performance in 2022 was strong in part because they didn’t have to face Cordeiro, who came to SJSU after spending four seasons at Hawaii.
He led the Mountain West in passing yards (2,885), passing touchdowns (20) and was the first SJSU quarterback in the modern era to rush for eight touchdowns.
The UH-transfer joins Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker, LSU’s Jayden Daniels, TCU’s Max Duggan and USC’s Caleb Williams to have over 300 passing attempts and less than four interceptions this season.
In just their first year together, Cordeiro and Cooks created the best quarterback-to-wide receiver connection in the conference.
Cooks, a Nevada-transfer, finished with a Mountain West-leading 10 touchdowns and is second in the conference with a career-high 983 yards.
He went for seven touchdowns in his final four games of the season, including a hat trick against Utah State.
Lockhart, a fellow roommate of Cordeiro and Cooks, went for 566 yards receiving, the third-best yards per catch in the conference (16.6).
His 82-yard reception against Western Michigan was SJSU’s longest play from scrimmage.
In a bowl year filled with collective greatness, it’s just as great to recognize the individuals who made it happen.