Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is more commonly known as the Ode to Joy. Weintraub's Ninth Symphony—aka the ninth annual Alumni Awards, my selections for every season's best NFL player from each of the Power 5 college programs—is similarly a joyous occasion that caps this football season. It's a great way to gauge the health of the collegiate teams, an indicator of the volatility of the pro game, and, most of all, a fun argument starter.
PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE
ARIZONA (9)
2012: Rob Gronkowski, TE, New England
2013: Nick Foles, QB, Philadelphia
2014: Rob Gronkowski, TE, New England
2015: Rob Gronkowski, TE, New England
2016: Rob Gronkowski, TE, New England
2017: Rob Gronkowski, TE, New England
2018: Rob Gronkowski, TE, New England
2019: Reggie Gilbert, LB, Tennessee
2020: Rob Gronkowski, TE, Tampa Bay
The former Wildcat presence in the pros is so stagnant that Gronk came out off the retirement shelf, didn't do a ton with the Bucs except give Tom Brady a contact drunk when he wanted to have fun by proxy, then caught a couple of Super Bowl touchdowns to enable him to cruise to his seventh AAA (Arizona Alumni Award), his first outside of Foxboro.