Cullowhee, N.C. – Western Carolina football landed two-thirds of the final Southern Conference weekly awards on Monday as redshirt sophomore quarterback Taron Dickens and true freshman placekicker Bryan McCollum were selected as the league's Offensive and Special Teams Players of the Week, as chosen by the conference office.
 
Dickens accounted for four touchdowns, including three passing and one rushing, last Saturday in the season finale at VMI, while McCollum made his collegiate debut with 12 combined points, finishing 6-of-6 on PATs and hitting both field goal attempts. Dickens collected his third weekly honor from the SoCon, while McCollum earned the first of his career and WCU's first special teams nod this fall.
 
The SoCon weekly awards are selected and announced by the conference office from nominations submitted by the communications staff at each member institution.
 
One of the presumptive front-runners for the 2025 Walter Payton Award, given to the top offensive player in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), Dickens also collected his fifth combined recognition from Stats Perform FCS on Monday by earning his fourth weekly honorable mention for the organization's Offensive Player of the Week award.
 
Dickens finished Saturday's finale 28-of-40 (70%) passing for 330 yards, his seventh 300-yard effort of the season. His passing scores went for 12 yards to WR Malik Knight, one yard to WR Michael Rossin, and 22 yards to TE Brayden Blackmon. His toss to Knight matched the SoCon's single-season passing TD record, while his connection with freshman Rossin broke the conference benchmark.
 
Dickens also rushed seven times for 32 yards and a three-yard TD run, his first of the season.
 
All told, Dickens finished the 2025 season with 38 TD passes in just nine games, breaking the Southern Conference's previous single-season record of 36 shared by former Samford quarterbacks Michael Hiers (2022) and Devlin Hodges (2016). Dickens threw 51 career passing TDs over 18 career games the past three seasons, tied for second in WCU's single-season record books (Cole Gonzales, 51 - 2022-24). He was also 10-3 as a starting QB for the Catamounts the past two years.
 
A product of Miami, Fla., Dickens led the NCAA FCS through the regular season with 3,508 passing yards and an NCAA-best 389.8 passing yards per game. He guided the top passing offense in the NCAA FCS as the Catamounts were the only team in the regular season to eclipse the 4,000-yard mark, doing so with a school-record 4,248 yards through the air, and an average of 355.7 yards per game.
 
Bryan McCollum made his collegiate debut in Saturday's win over VMI, scoring 12 total points to help the Catamounts secure their seventh seasonal victory. After WCU's opening drive of the game stalled at the VMI six-yard line, McColllum stepped onto the field for the first time and split the uprights on a 24-yard field goal for a lead the Catamounts would never relinquish. He also booted a career-long 29-yard field goal in the third quarter, while also hitting all six of his point-after-touchdown attempts with one kickoff.
 
Bryan is the younger brother of former Catamount kicker Richard McCollum (2018-23), who finished second in WCU's record books with 300 career points, just shy of all-time leader PK Kirk Roach (302 pts, 1984-87). Bryan earned his SoCon weekly honor, one that Richard took home six times in his WCU career.
 

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  Catamount head coach Kerwin Bell will be live on location at Catamount Jaxe (114 Market Street) in Cullowhee, just across NC Hwy 107 from the Ramsey Center, on Monday (Nov. 24) for the final installment of "Catamount Football Weekly," presented by Stanberry Insurance.

"Catamount Football Weekly" airs at 6 p.m. on the Catamount Athletics YouTube Channel and official Facebook page.

 

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Keep track of everything related to Catamount football and WCU Athletics through its social media outlets on Facebook (FB.com/CatamountSports; FB.com/catamountsportsnetwork) and Twitter (@catamounts, @CatamountsFB).
 
Western Carolina's Weekly SoCon Awards in 2025:
Sept. 22 – Taron Dickens (Offense)
Oct. 6 – Taron Dickens (Offense)
Oct. 13 – Ken Moore Jr. (Defense)
Nov. 24 – Taron Dickens (Offense)
Nov. 24 – Bryan McCollum (Special Teams)
 
Western Carolina's National Awards in 2025:
Sept. 15 – Dominic Dutton, National Special Teams Player of the Week (Honorable Mention)
Sept. 22 – Taron Dickens, FCS National Offensive Player of the Week (Honorable Mention)
Sept. 29 – Taron Dickens, FCS National Offensive Player of the Week (Honorable Mention)
Oct. 6 – Taron Dickens, Stats Perform FCS National Offensive Player of the Week
Oct. 13 – Hasaan Sykes, FCS National Defensive Player of the Week (Honorable Mention)
Oct. 13 – Western Carolina, FCS National Team of the Week (Honorable Mention)
Nov. 10 – Taron Dickens, Stats Perform FCS National Offensive Player of the Week (Honorable Mention)
Nov. 24 – Taron Dickens, Stats Perform FCS National Offensive Player of the Week (Honorable Mention)