The Ohio Valley / Big South Football Association announced the winners for the weekly awards on Monday morning and had a pair of Buccaneers earn honors. Zolten Osborne earned Offensive Player of the Week and Steve Zayachkowsky claimed Co-Defensive Player of the Week.
Osborne threw for a career-high four touchdowns in the win at Western Illinois, the most by a CSU QB since the start of the 2022 season. He had 262 passing yards on the day, his third game of the season eclipsing 200 and the second time that he has gone over 250. He took some of the most downfield attempts of the season with them as he averaged 18.7 yards per completion.
Zayachkowsky finished the game with 16 tackles with 10 of them being solo. He had 11 tackles in the second half with six coming in the fourth quarter. On the final possession of the day for the Leathernecks, he had the stops on the first and third down plays. The third down stop set up 4th and 1 where the Bucs were able to stuff the running back and force a turnover on downs to allow them to kneel out the remaining time in the game. This marks his fourth game of 2025 with 12 or more tackles. Currently, he ranks 12th in the nation in tackles per game at 9.6.
In total, these are the Buccaneers’ fourth and fifth weekly awards from the league office this fall. Others winners from Charleston Southern has included Gilbert Brown (Special Teams – 9/8), Steve Zayachkowsky (Defensive – 9/22) and Justin Waters (Defensive – 10/6).
Charleston Southern returns to Buccaneer Field to take Eastern Illinois this weekend. The kickoff is set for Saturday, October 25 with kickoff set for 2 p.m. with this to serve as Charleston Southern’s Homecoming for the academic year.