Players aren’t the only ones being feted in this wave of watch list releases.
In conjunction with the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation announced Friday the release of its watch list of 24 head coaches from six different conferences. Independent Notre Dame, with Brian Kelly, was also represented.
Of the two dozen coaches on the list, six are previous winners of the Dodd Trophy, including Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops (2003), TCU’s Gary Patterson (2009), Washington’s Chris Petersen (2010, at Boise State), Clemson’s Dabo Swinney (2011), Alabama’s Nick Saban (2014) and Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz (2015). Additionally, four of the coaches were finalists for last year’s award, including Swinney, Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio, Florida’s Jim McElwain and Stanford’s David Shaw.
The Pac-12 leads all conferences with six of that conference’s coaches on the list, followed by the Big Ten and SEC with five apiece and the ACC and Big 12 with three each. The American Athletic’s Tom Herman of Houston is the only one from a Group of Five conference.
Below is the complete 2016 Dodd Trophy preseason watch list:
