July 9, 2013
THE FLATS – Georgia Tech senior Jay Finch was named Tuesday to the preseason watch list for the prestigious Rimington Trophy, which is awarded each season to college football’s top center.
Finch is one of 17 returning players who were on the 2012 Rimington Trophy preseason watch list.
A two-year starter, Finch sat out all of spring drills to recover from surgery, but is expected to be close to 100 percent healthy when fall drills begin August 1. An honorable mention All-ACC selection in 2012, Finch has played in 38 games, started 27 times and enters 2013 with a streak of 18 consecutive starts.
Last season Finch started all 14 games while playing through a series of nagging injuries. He closed the 2012 campaign by earning Most Outstanding Lineman honors in the Hyundai Sun Bowl win over USC.
Finch is one of five players from the ACC on the Rimington Trophy watch list.
With several other individual award watch lists yet to be released, Georgia Tech has four players in the early running for national awards:
Jay Finch – Rimington Trophy (top center)
Jeremiah Attaochu – Bednarik Award (top defensive player)
Jemea Thomas – Bednarik Award (top defensive player)
Jamal Golden – Paul Hornung Award (most versatile player)
The Rimington Trophy committee uses these four prestigious teams to determine a winner:
* American Football Coaches Association
* Walter Camp Foundation
* Sporting News
* Football Writers Association of America
The winner will be honored at Rimington Trophy Presentation banquet at the Rococo Theater in Lincoln, Nebraska on January 11, 2014.
The Rimington Trophy is presented annually to the Most Outstanding Center in NCAA Division I-A College Football. Since its inception, the Rimington Trophy has raised over $2.5 million for the cystic fibrosis community. The fourteen-year old award is overseen by the Boomer Esiason Foundation, which is committed to finding a cure for cystic fibrosis and has raised over $100 million for CF Research.
Dave Rimington, the award’s namesake, was a consensus first-team All-America center at the University of Nebraska in 1981 and 1982, during which time he became the John Outland Trophy’s only double winner as the nation’s finest college interior lineman.
For more on the Rimington Trophy and a list of past recipients, visit www.rimingtontrophy.com
