TAMPA, DEC. 3, 2024 – The University of South Florida football team saw five players earn all-conference recognition Tuesday when the American Athletic Conference announced postseason honors selected by the conference coaches.
The Bulls’ five all-conference honorees were led by senior punter Andrew Stokes (Perth, Australia) who was selected to the All-Conference First Team after a career-best season that also saw him named a Ray Guy Award semifinalist as one of the top punters in the nation.
Senior defensive tackle Decarius Hawthorne (Birmingham, Ala.) earned All-Conference Second Team honors in his first season with the Bulls, while graduate wide receiver Sean Atkins (Viera, Fla.) was named to the All-Conference Third Team, marking the second straight all-conference recognition for the two-time Burlsworth Trophy semifinalist.
Graduate running back Kelley Joiner Jr. (Clermont, Fla.) and senior defensive tackle Bernard Gooden (Montgomery, Ala.) were named All-Conference Honorable Mention.
Stokes finished the regular season ranked 15th nationally and second in the conference with a 44.8 punting average, currently the second-best season average in USF program history. His 24 punts landed inside the 20 were by far the most in the conference, while he had just four touchbacks and opponents returned 12 punts for just 60 yards (5.0 ypr). Stokes set USF career records for punts inside the 20 with 70 and consecutive punts without a block with 190. His 7,920 punting yards in his career are the third-most in program history.
Hawthorne was a dominant force on the defensive line, often drawing double teams. He led Bulls’ defensive linemen with 38 tackles and 9.5 tackles for loss (which ranked second on the team) and added 2.5 sacks, two pass breakups, a recovered fumble, a forced fumble, and two quarterback hurries.
Atkins led the Bulls in receiving for the second-straight year, posting a pair of 100-yard receiving games as he collected 68 receptions for 677 yards and two touchdowns. His 68 receptions are the second-most in a season for USF, behind only his 92 catches last year. Atkins owns the career receptions record for the Bulls with 189 and moved into second all-time in career receiving yards with 2,063, just 73 shy of Andre Davis’s program record of 2,136.
Joiner Jr. posted a career-best year in his final season with the Bulls, logging three 100-yard rushing games on his way to 766 yards and 11 touchdowns on the ground, tied for seventh in a season at USF. He also added seven catches for 51 yards and two touchdowns receiving and returned six kickoffs for 130 yards, as he led the Bulls with 947 all-purpose yards. Joiner Jr. moved into sixth all-time on the USF career rushing chart with 2,178 yards.
Gooden posted 31 tackles, 9.0 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, two fumble recoveries, two pass breakups, and four quarterback hurries in his first season on the field for the Bulls.
USF won four of its last six games to close the 2024 regular season and earn the program’s 12th bowl appearance in 24 seasons playing FBS football, the fourth-most in the first 24 seasons for any program since 1980. The Bulls have won seven of their previous 11 bowl appearances, including three of the last four and a 45-0 victory over Syracuse in the 2023 Boca Raton Bowl.
ABOUT USF FOOTBALL The USF football program first took the field in 1997 and is in its 28th season in 2024 making back-to-back bowl appearances under second-year head coach Alex Golesh. USF completed construction on a new $22 million Indoor Performance Facility in 2023 and a $340-million on-campus stadium and football operations center is slated for completion by 2027. The Bulls have posted 16 winning seasons, earned 16 All-America selections (including two consensus selections, the last coming in 2021), as well as 32 first-team all-conference honorees. USF has had 30 players selected in the NFL Draft. The Bulls have earned 12 bowl game appearances (posting 7 wins), including a program-record six straight appearances from 2005-2010 and four straight bowl appearances from 2015-18. USF posted back-to-back 10-win seasons in 2016 and 2017, logging a program-record 11-2 mark in 2016, while finishing both seasons ranked in the Top 25. USF spent a program-record 20 straight weeks ranked in the Top 25 during the 2016 and 2017 campaigns and reached as high as No. 2 in the Associated Press rankings during the 2007 season.
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