Forgive Derek Stingley Jr. for not realizing the history he made in 2019. To do so, he would have to look back, to reflect, to reminisce, and that's now how Stingley operates. Since he first started watching film with his father when his peers were still watching cartoons, Stingley's been taught to think one way: next play. Thinking about the past, getting distracted by the previous snap – good or bad – that's the surest way to get burned on the next one.
So while he has spent the first few months of his first collegiate offseason devouring clips of his (infrequent) mistakes, working on his mental and physical flexibility and balance, while he's been obsessing on how he can improve on a freshman season with seemingly little room for it, Stingley overlooked the history he made: he became the first true freshman defender in college football history to earn Consensus All-American honors.