Why is Georgia football's Kirby Smart not on a watch list for top coaches?
College football’s preseason watch list rollout, for those who follow such things, will get cranked up next week.
There will be 16 different awards sending names of candidates to reporters’ inboxes and posting on social media between July 31-Aug. 14.
Some have already trickled out.
Any list of top college football coaches in the nation has to include the one who just won the last two national titles, right?
Well, not in the case of the Dodd Trophy preseason watch list that came out this month for the award that goes to the nation’s top coach.
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Twenty-one coaches are on the list.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart isn’t on there.
What gives?
“Since one of the main pillars of The Dodd Trophy focuses on scholarship, coaches named to this year’s preseason watch list were required to have an APR higher than 980,” spokesman Dillon Faulkner said via email .”UGA’s APR was under 980 so that’s why he wasn’t included this go-around.”
APR is the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate which aims to provide a real-time snapshot of a team’s path towards players graduating, using eligibility and retention of each player.
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Georgia’s single-year APR for 2021 was 975 and its multi-year rate was 965.
Other coaches that didn’t make the watch list because their teams didn’t hit the 980 APR included Tennessee’s Josh Heupel (968 for 2021) and Penn State’s James Franklin (914).
The award is presented by The Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation and Peach Bowl, Inc. in Atlanta.
Tulane’s Willie Fritz won the award last season when Smart was a finalist.
Award watch lists typically are generous with the number of names on the list.
Like most preseason watch lists, being named to it ultimately doesn’t matter much.
Smart and the others not on the list are still eligible to win the award come the end of the season.
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia football's Kirby Smart left off award watch list
