Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: UT-Austin Entry Title: Football collision Entry Credit: Manoo Sirivelu Judge Comment: Excellent capture and a strong image. The action is crisp and the positions of the players flow nicely in the frame. A tighter crop, maybe even a vertical crop, would have made this moment pop even more, but well done overall.
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: Baylor Entry Title: One-handed catch Entry Credit: Ken Prabhakar Judge Comment: I can image the scrambling that must have happen on the sideline — by both the player and photographer — to grab this moment. Nice job being alert and ready to react. Bringing in the crop more would help pull the focus to the one-handed catch and bring out his expression.
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: A&M-College Station Entry Title: Quarterback Rush Entry Credit: Chris Swann Judge Comment: Love seeing the expression on the players face as he reaches for those extra yards. Don't be afraid to push into that image more and eliminate some of the dead space behind them.
Place Name: Honorable Mention Contestant Name: Texas Tech Entry Title: Lux fails to stop Entry Credit: Jacob Lujan Judge Comment: Nice moment and an almost classic image of a player running in a touchdown. You caught the player right at the edge of the frame, which is great, but bringing that crop in from the left would help balance out the image and make it feel less like you are being pulled out of the image by the player. Overall, a nice catch.
Competition Comment: Some really nice moments and great action across all of the top images in this category. Sports photographers have to be ready to react when pivotal moments happen, and these images all show what good timing, smart field position and a high level of skill can produce. Overall, I think most of the photos in this category could have benefited from more aggressive cropping. On sports action photos especially, a tighter crop really helps eliminate the distraction around the field of play and pulls the viewer into the moment that makes the image special.
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