College Football Awards Beyond the Heisman

By 4Football Staff · September 26, 2026 · 10 min read

A field guide to college football's other major awards, from position trophies to character honors, with who votes on each and what each one actually recognizes.

Early in December, a player's school sends out a news release that begins with the words "named a finalist for." Then another one. By the end of the month the same player may have been a finalist for four or five trophies that most casual fans have never heard of, and may have won one or two of them. It is easy to dismiss that as award inflation, but the system is more useful than it looks. Each award is trying to answer a different question, and once you know the question, the trophy tells you something.

This guide sorts the awards into families: overall player of the year, position awards, defense, special teams, character and academics, coaches, and the lower divisions. It also explains the All-America system, which is a different kind of honor altogether.

A word of caution before we start. Awards are run by independent organizations such as foundations, clubs, sports commissions and media associations. Their sponsors, their selection panels, and sometimes their eligibility rules change over time. The facts below are the stable core, and for current rules you should check each award's own announcement.

Why there are so many

The Heisman Trophy honors the most outstanding player in the country, and only one player wins it each year. That leaves a lot of excellent football unrecognized: the best lineman, the best defensive back, the best kicker, the best walk-on, the best student. Over the decades, civic groups and foundations created awards for each of those niches, usually naming the trophy after a former player or coach connected to the host city or school.

That naming habit is helpful if you want to remember who an award is for. Most position awards are named for a famous player at that position, and you can usually guess the position from the person: the Butkus Award for a linebacker, the Biletnikoff Award for a receiver, the Ray Guy Award for a punter.

If you want the mechanics of the biggest award first, start with our guide to how the Heisman voting works. The rest of this article covers everything else.

Player-of-the-year awards

Several honors compete with the Heisman for the title of best player in the country. They often go to the same player in a given year, but not always.

• The Maxwell Award is presented by the Maxwell Football Club and honors the outstanding college football player of the year. It dates to the 1930s and is named for Robert "Tiny" Maxwell, an early football star.
• The Walter Camp Award is presented by the Walter Camp Football Foundation, named for the man often called the "Father of American Football" for his rule changes in the sport's early years. It is voted on by coaches and school communications staff.
• The Associated Press (AP) Player of the Year is chosen by the AP's panel of voters.

These honors are not interchangeable. One reason is the electorate. The Heisman uses media, former winners and a fan vote. The Walter Camp Award uses people who work inside programs and watch the sport closely. The Maxwell Award uses a panel assembled by the club that runs it. When the groups disagree, it is usually because the players were close and the voters weighed different things: team success, big-game performance, or season-long numbers.

The position awards on offense

Most of the position awards are named for a famous player. Here are the main ones.

Details that tend to confuse people:

• The Davey O'Brien Award and the Unitas Award both honor quarterbacks, but they ask different questions. The Unitas award is limited to quarterbacks in their final stretch of eligibility, which rewards a body of work as a senior or a fourth-year player.
• The Outland Trophy is not an "offensive lineman" award. It is given to the best interior lineman, which includes both offensive and defensive players who line up in the middle. It was first presented in the 1940s and is administered by the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA), so it is among the longest-running position honors.
• The Rimington Trophy narrows the Outland field. Centers are a small group, and a dedicated award exists because they rarely win broader prizes.

Offensive linemen are the hardest players to honor, since their contribution does not appear in a box score. Awards like the Outland and Rimington exist largely to fix that.

The defense awards

Defense has its own family.

• The Bednarik Award goes to the defensive player of the year. It is presented by the Maxwell Football Club, and is named for Chuck Bednarik, a Penn star who played both ways and later became a Hall of Fame professional.
• The Nagurski Trophy also honors the top defensive player. It is named for Bronko Nagurski, who starred at Minnesota, and is presented by a Charlotte-based club with the FWAA's involvement.
• The Lombardi Award honors the best lineman or linebacker. It is named for Vince Lombardi, who played in college at Fordham before becoming a famous coach, and it has been presented since 1970.
• The Butkus Award honors the top linebacker and is named for Dick Butkus of Illinois.
• The Jim Thorpe Award honors the top defensive back and is named for Jim Thorpe, the multisport athlete whose career included college football at Carlisle.

Two awards, the Bednarik and Nagurski, are both for "defensive player of the year." Having two is not a mistake. They have different voters, and the same player does not always win both. When a defensive player wins one and not the other, you are looking at two different electorates making two different calls.

Special teams

Special teams get their own trophies because kicking and punting are specialized skills and rarely appear in broader awards.

• The Lou Groza Award honors the top place-kicker. It is named for Lou Groza, a lineman and kicker at Ohio State who went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Cleveland Browns.
• The Ray Guy Award honors the top punter. It is named for Ray Guy, the Southern Mississippi punter who became the first pure punter selected in the first round of the NFL Draft.

There are also awards for return specialists and long snappers, which are newer and vary in how widely they are recognized. As with all niche honors, check the awarding group for specifics.

Character, community and academics

Several of the most respected awards have nothing to do with statistics.

• The William V. Campbell Trophy, awarded by the National Football Foundation, recognizes the best combination of academic success, community service and on-field performance. It is often called the "Academic Heisman."
• The Wuerffel Trophy recognizes community service and is named for Danny Wuerffel, the Florida quarterback who won the Heisman in 1996.
• The Burlsworth Trophy goes to the most outstanding player who began his career as a walk-on. It is named for Brandon Burlsworth, an Arkansas walk-on who became an All-American lineman. If you are curious about how walk-ons fit into a program, our guide to walk-ons explains the route.
• The Paul Hornung Award honors the most versatile player, someone who contributes in several phases of the game.

The Campbell Trophy deserves attention because of the question it asks. It treats football as one part of a student's life and rewards players who excel in the classroom and community as well as on the field. Candidates must meet academic standards set by the foundation and be nominated by their schools.

Coaches' awards

Coaches have their own honors, too.

• The Paul "Bear" Bryant Award is presented to the coach of the year and is named for the Alabama coach.
• The Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award, from the FWAA, is named for the longtime Grambling State head coach, a central figure in the history of historically Black college football.
• The Broyles Award honors the top assistant coach in the country. It is named for Frank Broyles, a coach and athletic director at Arkansas.

The existence of the Broyles Award says something about how football works. A head coach gets most of the attention, but the sport is built by coordinators and position coaches, and our overview of college coaching staffs explains who does what.

Awards for the lower divisions

Players at other levels are not left out.

• The Walter Payton Award honors the top offensive player in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). It is named for Walter Payton, who starred at Jackson State before his Hall of Fame pro career.
• The Buck Buchanan Award honors the top defensive player at the FCS level. It is named for Buck Buchanan, a Grambling State defensive lineman.
• The Harlon Hill Trophy honors the top player in NCAA Division II.
• The Gagliardi Trophy honors the top player in Division III, and is named for John Gagliardi, the longtime St. John's coach in Minnesota.

Our guide to how the divisions differ shows how these levels relate to one another.

All-America teams: a different kind of honor

An award names one winner. An All-America team names a group, usually a first team and sometimes second and third teams, with players at every position.

The NCAA recognizes five selectors for its "consensus" designations: the Associated Press, the American Football Coaches Association, the Football Writers Association of America, The Sporting News and the Walter Camp Football Foundation. A player who appears on the most first-team lists across those groups is named a consensus All-American, and a player who is a first-team pick on all five is a unanimous All-American. Each selector has its own panel and its own process, so their teams differ.

All-America status is a broad credential that follows a player for life, in school media guides and in draft profiles. It is also more inclusive than a trophy, since dozens of players receive it each year. Lots of other organizations name their own All-America teams, and media outlets often publish their own, so the term is not always as meaningful as "consensus" or "unanimous."

All-conference teams and other local honors

Below the national honors are conference awards. Each conference names its own player of the year, offensive and defensive players of the year, freshman of the year and coach of the year, plus an all-conference team. Voting is usually by the league's coaches, and in some conferences by media members as well. Coaches are typically barred from voting for their own players. These honors matter because they are decided by people who see the teams play year after year.

Weekly honors are common, too. Conferences and national groups name players of the week, and some national awards publish a "watch list" before the season and trim it to semifinalists and finalists as the year goes on.

How to read an awards announcement

Awards season produces a flood of lists. A few habits help.

1. Know the question. Is the award for one position, for a division, for a class year, or for character?
2. Know the voters. Coaches, media, committees and past winners often reach different answers.
3. Distinguish a watch list from a finalist list. Being on a preseason watch list is the weakest signal, because those lists are long. A finalist is far more selective.
4. Compare with the stats. Our leaders page lists the statistical leaders, and our guide to reading college football stats helps you interpret them.
5. Remember that eligibility rules vary. Some awards limit candidates by class year or division. Check the awarding group's own rules.

Players who go on to the NFL carry their college honors with them, and our player pages and college section are good places to keep following them.

What awards cannot tell you

An award reflects a group of voters at a particular moment. Voters tend to favor players on winning teams and in prominent games. Players at smaller programs and players in less glamorous roles are underrepresented. Interior linemen and defensive backs get fewer chances to produce eye-catching numbers. And because most awards are announced in December, before bowl games and the playoff, they usually reflect the regular season. None of this makes the awards meaningless. It means they are best read as one useful opinion, and the more of them you consult, the better the picture.

For a different kind of recognition, one that looks at a whole career, see our explainer on how the College Football Hall of Fame chooses its inductees.

The short version

• Different awards answer different questions: best overall, best at a position, best on defense, best student, best walk-on, best coach.
• Position awards are usually named for a famous player at that position, which makes them easy to decode.
• The Outland Trophy honors the best interior lineman on either side of the ball, and the Rimington Trophy is for centers.
• The Campbell Trophy blends academics, service and play and is often called the "Academic Heisman."
• Lower divisions have their own honors, such as the Walter Payton Award at the FCS level and the Harlon Hill Trophy in Division II.
• An All-America team names a group of players, and "consensus" and "unanimous" are the meaningful labels.
• Voters, sponsors and rules change, so check the awarding group for the current details.