Tag: Dodd Watch list

Ohio State’s Ryan Day makes the preseason watch list for Dodd Trophy

Make that five straight years! #GoBucks

We’re eight weeks away from the start of college football which means the preseason watch lists will start rolling out. It was announced recently that Ohio State head coach Ryan Day has been named one of the 21 coaches to make the cut for the Dodd Trophy.

The 2024 preseason Dodd Trophy watch list goes to the head coach “whose team excels on the field, in the classroom, and in the community.” The Dodd Trophy has been handed out annually since 1976 by the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. Jim Tressel won the award in 2002 after upsetting Miami for the national championship. Tressel is the only Ohio State coach to be given the trophy, however, former Buckeye Luke Fickell won the award in 2021 as the head coach of Cincinnati.

The Dodd Trophy describes the selection process as follows.

“The watch list was created through a selection process by the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation and Peach Bowl, Inc. taking into consideration each program’s Academic Progress Rate (APR), Graduation Success Rate (GSR), commitment to service and charity in the community, as well as projected success for the 2024 season.”

Ryan Day certainly exemplifies the qualities the Dodd Trophy embodies.

It is the fifth straight year Day has appeared on the Dodd preseason watch list. Included in the list of 21 are fellow Big Ten coaches James Franklin of Penn State and Kirk Ferentz of Iowa.

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Ryan Day makes the preseason watch list for Dodd Trophy

Day makes this list once again. #GoBucks

Nothing quite rings the bell that we’re close to the start of the college football season than the parade of preseason award watch lists. Those are about to begin in earnest, but we already are starting to see some of the early ones make the rounds.

This past week, the 2023 preseason Dodd Trophy watch list that goes to the head coach “whose team excels on the field, in the classroom, and in the community,” was released, and Ohio State head coach Ryan Day was among the 21 names appearing.

The Dodd Trophy has been handed out annually since 1976 by the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. Jim Tressel is the only OSU coach to have won the award back in that memorable 2002 season. To qualify for the list, a coach has to have his team have an academic progress rate of at least 980, with first-year coaches not eligible for the award.

Day, entering his fifth season in Columbus and has won at an elite clip, amassing a 45-6 record. He has three College Football Playoff appearances, a national title game appearance, three Big Ten East championships, and two Big Ten titles. However, the caveat of all caveats is that he’s working through a two-game losing streak to Michigan.

That’s the on-the-field success. Off the field, his teams have done great in the classroom. The Ohio State program has an academic progress rate of 1,000, which is tied with Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh and Wake Forest’s Dave Clawson on the list as the best in the country.

It’s the fourth-straight year Day has appeared on the Dodd preseason watch list and he’ll be hoping that on-field success this year goes in concert with what happens off the gridiron to bring it home.

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