Watch Lists Update

Last week, I did a blog post about the many players named to watch lists between July 7 and July 11. Here's an update that I think you might find interesting now that all 16 watch lists have been announced (the final one came out Friday).

My favorite watch list is probably the Lombardi Award watch list, which features 123 players. Believe it or not, the list will actually be updated before the season starts to include other players that receive "significant pre-season honors."

My advice: Put your game film together and send it in. You might get named to the updated watch list!

Here are the final stats from the 16* watch lists.

• Of the 128 FBS schools, only seven do not have at least one player on a single watch list.
• Those schools are: Buffalo, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Massachusetts, Miami (OH), Southern Miss and Wake Forest
• That means 94.5 percent of all FBS schools had at least one player on a watch list.
• Georgia Southern is playing its first season at the FBS level in 2014, while Georgia State will be playing its second FBS season (and fifth season ever after being founded in 2010). Massachusetts did not join the FBS ranks until 2011.
• Wake Forest is the only school from a major conference (ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-12 and SEC) without at least one player on a single watch list.
• Here's a list of schools in major conferences that had three or fewer watch list appearances (each time a player is on a different watch list, it counts as one - for example: Arkansas Trey Flowers is on three watch lists, so he counts as three)...
• Wake Forest (ACC): 0
• Oklahoma State (Big XII): 1
• Washington State (Pac-12): 1
• Boston College (ACC): 2
• Colorado (Pac-12): 2
• Georgia Tech (ACC): 2
• Purdue (Big Ten): 2
• Vanderbilt (SEC): 2
• Illinois (Big Ten): 3
• Kentucky (SEC): 3
• North Carolina State (ACC): 3
• Alabama led all teams with 27 watch list appearances. Here's a list of all schools with at least 15 appearances on watch lists…
• Alabama (SEC): 27
• Stanford (Pac-12): 26
• Florida State (ACC): 25
• USC (Pac-12): 24
• Oregon (Pac-12): 23
• Michigan State (Big Ten): 21
• Georgia (SEC): 20
• Texas (Big XII): 20
• Baylor (Big XII): 19
• Duke (ACC): 19
• Oklahoma (Big XII): 18
• TCU (Big XII): 16
• UCLA (Pac-12): 16
• Kansas State (Big XII): 15
• Notre Dame (Ind.): 15
• Ohio State (Big Ten): 15
• Washington (Pac-12): 15
• Of the 17 teams that had 15 or more watch list appearances, only TCU (4-8) had a losing record in 2013. Only six did not win at least 10 games last season.
• Those teams are: TCU (4), Georgia (8), Kansas State (8), Texas (8), Notre Dame (9) and Washington (9)
• Arkansas was one of 37 teams that had at least 10 watch list appearances. Of those 37 teams, three had losing records in 2013.
• Those teams are: Arkansas (3-9), Florida (4-8) and TCU (4-8)
• The SEC had the most watch list appearances, with 146. Here's how many all conferences had…
• SEC: 146
• Pac-12: 144
• Big Ten: 118
• ACC: 117
• Big XII: 111
• MWC: 65
• American: 62
• C-USA: 47
• Independents: 37
• MAC: 33
• Sun Belt: 33
• However, if you factor in the fact that the SEC has 14 teams and the Pac-12 has 12 teams, the Pac-12 has more watch list appearances per team…
• Pac-12: 12 (12 teams)
• Big XII: 11.1 (10 teams)
• SEC: 10.34 (14 teams)
• Big Ten: 8.43 (14 teams)
• ACC: 8.36 (14 teams)
• American: 5.64 (11 teams)
• MWC: 5.42 (12 teams)
• C-USA: 3.62 (13 teams)
• Sun Belt: 3 (11 teams)
• MAC: 2.54 (12 teams)

*The 16 watch lists I used for these stats are: Paul Hornung Award, Maxwell Award, Bednarik Award, Mackey Award, Rimington Trophy, Lou Groza Award, Ray Guy Award, Nagurski Trophy, Outland Trohpy, Jim Thorpe Award, Butkus Award, Lombardi Award, Biletnikoff Award, Davey O'Brien Award, Doak Walker Award and Walter Camp Award.

Watch Lists Galore

With football season a little over a month away, it's the time of year again when watch lists for all of the college football awards start coming out.

Each list features prominent names (Jameis Winston, Bryce Petty, Marcus Mariota, etc.) and, well, less prominent names (Old Dominion's Antonio Vaughan, UAB's Hunter Mullins, etc.).

I find the sheer volume of names on the list to be borderline ridiculous. For example, the Rimington Trophy (best center) watch list initially included 64 players. Idaho's Mike Marboe and UTSA's Nate Leonard were added to the list Tuesday, bringing the total to 66 players. (yes, Idaho and UTSA play at the FBS level, in the Mountain Belt of America Conference, or something like that).

With 128 schools playing at the FBS level in 2014, that means 51.6 percent of schools have their center on the watch list. Sure, the Nagurski Trophy (best defensive player) watch list included more players (81), but that is choosing from a field of more than 1,408 players (11 defensive players x 128 schools).

There is only one center on the field at a time.

Here are some more interesting stats I found while looking at the 10* watch lists that have been released so far.

• Of the 128 FBS schools, only 15 do not have at least one player on a single watch list.
• Those schools are: Appalachian State, Ball State, Buffalo, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Massachusetts, Miami (OH), Oklahoma State, Southern Miss, Texas State, Troy, Wake Forest, Washington State and Wyoming.
• Of the 70 teams that play in one of the six power conferences (American, ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-12 and SEC), only three do not have at least one player on a single watch list.
• Those schools are: Oklahoma State (Big XII), Wake Forest (ACC) and Washington State (Pac-12).
• There are 46 schools with at least five watch list appearances. (If a player is on multiple watch lists, he is counted for each watch list he is on. For example, Arkansas' Trey Flowers is on the Bednarik Award and Nagurski Trophy watch lists, while Alex Collins, Hunter Henry, Sam Irwin-Hill and Jonathan Williams are each on only one watch list. There are five different players, but Arkansas has six watch list appearances.)
• Only four of those teams had a losing record in 2013.
• Arkansas: six appearances, 3-9 record
• Florida: eight appearances, 4-8 record
• Northwestern: five appearances, 5-7 record
• TCU: 11 appearances, 4-8 record
• There are 13 schools with at least 10 watch list appearances.
• TCU is the only one of those teams that had a losing record in 2013.
• The other 12 schools had a combined winning percentage of .789 in 2013.
• Only three schools, other than TCU, failed to win at least 10 games last season (Georgia, Texas and Washington).
• Alabama (not surprisingly) leads the country with 17 watch list appearances.
• Here's the top 13...
• Alabama: 17
• Florida State: 16
• Michigan State: 16
• Stanford: 16
• Oregon: 14
• USC: 14
• Duke: 13
• Oklahoma: 13
• Texas: 12
• Georgia: 11
• TCU: 11
• Washington: 11
• Baylor: 10

*For my stats, I included the Paul Hornung Award watch list that was released Monday but for some reason isn't usually included in lists of college football awards. Other watch lists released last week were the Maxwell Award, Bednarik Award, Mackey Award, Rimington Trophy, Lou Groza Award, Ray Guy Award, Nagurski Trophy, Outland Trophy and Jim Thorpe Award.