Baker Mayfield, Maggie Nichols sweep Big 12 Athlete of Year honors

The votes are in, and it was a clean sweep for Sooner superstars Baker Mayfield and Maggie Nichols, named 2017-18 Big 12 Athletes of the Year.

Related Story. Baker Mayfield nominated for Big 12 Athlete of the Year. light

Mayfield and Nichols were selected by OU officials to represent the university in the annual awards competition for Big 12 Athlete of the Year. A male and a female candidate from each Big 12 member institution was then voted on by a media panel as well as fan voting to select the winner in both categories.

It marked the second time in three years that Oklahoma has swept both awards. Sooner basketball star Buddy Hield and softball standout Paige Parker were co-winners in 2015-16.

Overall, 10 OU student-athletes (five males and five females) have been named Big 12 Athlete of the Year since the award was introduced in the conference’s first season of operation in 1996-97.

SAN JOSE, CA – JULY 08: Maggie Nichols competes on the balance beam during day 1 of the 2016 U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team Trials at SAP Center on July 8, 2016 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) /

Mayfield capped his final year at Oklahoma with the 2017 Heisman Trophy, consensus All-America honors, the Maxwell Award as the nation’s best college football player, the Davey O’Brien Award as the country’s best quarterback and an OU-record four Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week awards.

In April, the three-year starting quarterback for the Sooners was drafted No. 1 overall in the 2018 NFL Draft.

Nichols had a similar standout season in OU women’s gymnastics, in only her sophomore year. She was the NCAA individual champion in the all-around competition this year and co-national champion on the uneven bars and floor exercise. She recorded a perfect score of 10.0 eight times in her sophomore season, and is only the third female gymnast to score a perfect score on bars in the NCAA Championships.

A native Minnesotan, Nichols led her Sooner squad to a 13-1 season record and a runner-up finish in the 2018 NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championship. The Sooners were ranked No. 1 in the country for 10 consecutive weeks in 2017-18.

To view the complete list of nominees for the 2017-18 Big 12 Athletes of the Year competition, as well a list of the past winners, click here.

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