College football's awards circuit begins this week and closes Saturday evening with the presentation of the Heisman Trophy in New York City, but don't look for any Ducks on the dais.



A handful of Oregon players compiled statistically compelling 2015 seasons but none was a finalist for the major honors that will be announced Thursday during ESPN's College Football Awards show (4 p.m. PT).



Sophomore Royce Freeman was not a finalist for the Doak Walker Award given to best running back, while senior defensive end DeForest Buckner missed out on the Nagurski and Lombardi awards, as well as Polynesian Player of the Year. (He is a finalist for the 14-year-old Ted Hendricks Award, for top defensive end, however.)



It's a change from 2014, when Marcus Mariota won three awards for national player of the year -- among them, the Heisman -- and two for best quarterback, and cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu was a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award.



If PFF College handed out awards, it would be a different story.



PFF, which originated as a scouting service offering advanced statistics on the NFL and has since extended to college football -- and, in full disclosure, partnered with The Oregonian/OregonLive this season to provide in-depth statistics -- named both Buckner and Freeman among the 10 most-deserving players for the Heisman this week. In addition, it named both among the top three for their positional awards.

Under PFF's analysis, Freeman would finish third in the Doak Walker standings, behind Stanford's Christian McCaffrey and LSU's Leonard Fournette. Buckner would win the Outland Trophy for top interior lineman and come in second, behind Ohio State's Joey Bosa, for the Bednarik Award. Buckner graded as PFF College's best 3-4 interior defender against the pass and was among the top 10 in stopping the run, as well.

"There were some guys with similar pass-rush grades, some guys with similar run-stop grades but few players had the combination with both," PFF senior analyst Steve Palazzolo said in an interview. "That's what separated both (Buckner and Bosa)."

Buckner, a 6-foot-7, 290-pound senior and Pac-12 Conference defensive player of the year, recorded a team-leading 16 tackles for loss, six quarterback hits and 9.5 sacks this season, along with 76 total tackles, which ranked second-most for UO. PFF's rating groups defensive ends and tackles in 3-4 schemes together for a rating of all interior lineman.

Oregon defensive lineman DeForest Buckner was the top-rated interior defensive lineman in 3-4 schemes against the run and pass in 2015.



McCaffrey would win in PFF College's hypothetical Heisman race but Buckner would finish seventh and Freeman 10th.



"There are probably 10 guys in any given year who would be right there in that top two or three in the Heisman and it's just a loaded season, especially at running back," Palazzolo said. "There are so many good runners some guys do get lost in the mix and Freeman is one of those guys that is getting lost in the shuffle."



Freeman's 142.1 rushing yards per game is fourth-best nationally and with 1,706 yards is 99 from tying LaMike James's single-season record set in 2011.

More of our interview with Palazzolo about Buckner and Freeman's seasons is below, and has been edited for length.

What does it say to you that Buckner was as disruptive as he was despite playing on a defense that rated low in most statisics?



Palazzolo: He's been really impressive. Coming into the season we did have high hopes for him because last year he actually graded much better than Arik Armstead for us. We went through the whole (2014) season saying we know Armstead is getting this first-round hype but Buckner just really outplayed him. I know they play slightly different roles but he was so disruptive last year in both the run game and the pass game that we did have high hopes. This year he went out from a grading standpoint was so disruptive. From a pass rush standpoint he has the top pass-rush grade in the country. ... The fact that we charted him for 11 sacks, 14 hits and 38 hurries was just so impressive and on top of that he played 850 snaps, which was the second-most snaps of any interior defensive lineman. In run defense he was fifth in the nation for us. That overall package was so impressive for us.



PFF included Buckner and Ohio State defensive end Joey Bosa in its Heisman top 10. What led to that?



Palazzolo: I think the Heisman would include defensive players if they had a better way of defining defensive production, essentially. A defensive player to win the Heisman would have to have 15 or 20 sacks or 15 interceptions and ridiculous numbers. We're able to grade these guys on every single play and really quantify just how disruptive they are. Both players were just better than everybody when it came to that, on a down-to-down basis with pressure, on a down-to-down basis affecting the run. Bosa was our top guy against the run as far as edge players. We're able to track, did you defeat your block, did you force the running back to cut, those types of things. That's what goes into our grading and that's where Bosa and Buckner were really head and shoulders ahead of everyone else. It's just the overall package: There were some guys with similar pass-rush grades, with similar run-stop grades but few players had the combination with both and that's what separated both guys.



For Royce Freeman, he's playing in a loaded running back class, with Stanford's Christian McCaffrey and Alabama's Derrick Henry named finalists for the Heisman and several other, arguably deserving, candidates at the position. What does he do so well from an analyst's perspective?



Palazzolo: (Freeman) did force 72 tackles, which is third-most in the country and we were definitely impressed by that and from a grading standpoint we really tried to separate what a running back is able to do versus what the offensive line did. In that sense, a guy like Utah's Devontae Booker graded really well for us even though he only averaged about 4.7 (yards) per carry, but his rating was similar to Freeman's. Freeman ended up with the No. 5 run grade in the entire country. We could see that he was doing a lot of the work. The line helped but being the No. 5 run grade is impressive and that's behind guys like Leonard Fournette, Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook and Booker. (Freeman) graded well as a receiver, he was No. 10 out of all the running backs. It was an impressive all-around effort and we thought he did a nice job of creating on his own.



Some have wondered why Freeman hasn't received much postseason recognition and whether Oregon's deep running back corps adds any bias against Freeman, because all Oregon's other backs have also looked impressive at times running the ball while replacing Freeman. Do you sense that as working against him?



Palazzolo: There is an element to the opportunities but (Freeman had a lot more opportunities than, say, (Florida State's) Dalvin Cook, he has a similar number of carries to Leonard Fournette. I do think there is a perception that Oregon's offense is plug and play. You're almost at the mercy of previous guy's success. I think everybody expected Vernon Adams to come in and put up Mariota-like numbers because that's what they do. So there is an unfair expectation out there that works against them a little bit but ultimately it comes down to there are probably 10 guys in any given year who would be right there in that top two or three in the Heisman and it's just a loaded season, especially at running back. There are so many good runners some guys do get lost in the mix and Freeman is one of those guys that is getting lost in the shuffle, with a Dalvin Cook, even Ezekiel Elliott at Ohio State. All those guys have an argument to be made.



-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com

@andrewgreif