KU junior Marcus Herford snagged the Jayhawks’ first Big 12 Player-of-the-Week honors this season, splitting the special teams award with Texas’ Brandon Foster.Herford received the honor Monday by returning three kicks for 149 yards, including a 74-yard free kick return for a touchdown, in a 62-0 victory over Southeastern Louisiana.Seeing Herford succeed isn’t much of a surprise, really. In [ an article][1] we had a couple of weeks ago, KU special-teams guru Louie Matsakis gushed about Herford’s knack at returning kicks. Herford ranked very high nationally in 2006 and probably will do the same this year.Herford and Foster weren’t the only two forced to split their award. Oklahoma QB Sam Bradford and Baylor QB Blake Szymanski split the offensive honors from last weekend, while Oklahoma DB Reggie Smith took defensive honors all by himself.As for [ my vote?][2] I did vote for Herford, in what I considered somewhat of a weak week for special-teams standouts. The fact that Herford ran over a bad FCS team counted against him, but he did more in the return game than anyone in the Big 12 by far last weekend.On offense, I went with Szymanski, though I would’ve felt comfortable picking Bradford, Missouri’s Chase Daniel (330 yards passing, 5 TDs), Texas Tech wideout Michael Crabtree (15 receptions, 188 yards, 2 TDs) or Texas A&M running back Jovorskie Lane (121 yards rushing, 4 TDs, big two-point conversion). It was a loaded week for offensive nominees, but overall, I felt that Szymanski’s re-writing of the Baylor record books (412 yards passing, six touchdowns) in leading the Bears to a much-needed victory warranted the honor no matter how bad Rice was.Defensively I chose Colorado’s Jordon Dizon, who had 17 tackles, including three for a loss and two sacks, against Arizona State.That’s all from here. I’ll be back tomorrow to give you the Tuesday press conference recap. Cheers. [1]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2007/sep/01/many_happy_returns/ [2]: http://www2.kusports.com/blogs/sawin_wood/2007/sep/02/sawinwood090207/