Note: The following appears in the Georgia Southern football digital gameday guide, available HERE.
Brie Clark, Sammy Brown and Abby Dunning were named recipients of Clemson athletic department-wide awards for the 2025-26 academic year. Clark was the winner of the Frank Howard Award, Brown was the winner of the IPTAY Athlete-of-the-Year and Dunning was the recipient of the Brandon Streeter Award.
The Frank Howard Award is presented for bringing honor to Tiger athletics. Clark was named a first-team WCGA regular-season All-American and an NCAA All-American on floor exercises at the NCAA Championships. The native of Daphne, Ala. became the first Clemson All-American in gymnastics. For the third time, she was named to the All-ACC team, as her 9.945 NQS was the highest by any ACC gymnastics athlete in any event in 2026.
Clark was a major reason Clemson won the ACC championship and reached the NCAA regional finals, just the third year of the sport at Clemson. She became the first Clemson competitor at the national meet, earning a bid out of the Baton Rouge Regional on floor exercise.
For the academic year, Clark won nine titles on floor and two on beam. She had 21 podium finishes overall and was the only gymnast in the nation with a 9.900 score on floor in all 15 meets in 2026.
The IPTAY Athlete-of-the-Year is presented each year to the Clemson student-athlete who excels on the field and in the classroom. Brown was named a third-team All-American and first-team All-ACC linebacker on the field by Phil Steele and a second-team Academic All-American by CSC.
He was the first Clemson defensive player to earn Academic All-America honors since 2001, when Chad Carson was honored. Brown, an aspiring pediatrician, has over a 3.8 GPA n biological sciences.
Brown was credited with a team-high 107 tackles, 13.5 tackles for loss and five sacks in 2025. He played a defensive-unit-high 734 snaps in 13 games, all as a starting linebacker. He had a team-high 11 tackles and two tackles for loss in Clemson’s win at No. 19 Louisville in 2025. He finished the year with a career-high 15 tackles in the Pinstripe Bowl against Penn State.
The Brandon Streeter Award is presented each year to the student-athlete who overcomes injury or illness to have an outstanding season on the field. Dunning missed the 2025 season as a pitcher at Boston College due to injury, but came back strong after transferring to Clemson in the fall of 2025.
The award is named in honor of former Tiger quarterback Brandon Streeter (1996-99). He time and again overcame injuries to lead the Clemson offense.
Dunning appeared in 31 games for Clemson’s NCAA Tournament team and pitched 106.0 innings. She finished the year with nine wins and 94 strikeouts. Her season included a no-hitter against Georgia Tech, the eighth no-hitter in program history. Her season included three shutouts, including six-strikeout performances against Louisville and Coastal Carolina.