On Thursday it was announced via press release that Alabama head coach Nick Saban has been named to The Dodd Trophy Watch List. The Dodd Trophy is college football’s most coveted national coaching award which honors scholarship, leadership and integrity.
This year’s list for The Dodd Trophy will be a bit different due to the coaches who will be playing in the spring. This season only coaches who are playing in the fall will be eligible to receive the award.
“An unprecedented season calls for an unprecedented preseason watch list,” said Jim Terry, chairman of the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation. “When considering candidates for this year’s Dodd Trophy, the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation made the decision to align with the College Football Playoff’s timeline and only consider coaches who will play during the fall season. That said, we still would like to recognize coaches from other conferences who met all of the criteria and under normal circumstances would be included on our list.”
Here is the full list of coaches on the watch list:
Mack Brown, North Carolina
Luke Fickell, Cincinnati
Tom Herman, Texas
Josh Heupel, UCF
Brian Kelly, Notre Dame
Guz Malzahn, Auburn
Bronco Mendenhall, Virginia
Dan Mullen, Florida
Ed Orgeron, LSU
Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma
Nick Saban, Alabama
Kirby Smart, Georgia
Dabo Swinney, Clemson
Saban took home the award as recently as 2014 and is joined by three other past winners of the award which include Brian Kelly (2018), Dabo Swinney (2011) and Mack Brown (2008).
The SEC leads all conferences with five coaches making the list with the ACC having the next most with four.
During the season the watch list will be updated or narrowed if more coaches meet or fall short of the criteria.
The Dodd Trophy Coach of the Week Award will also be presented weekly to the coach whose program embodies the award’s three pillars of scholarship, leadership and integrity, while also having success on the field.
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Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
