Clemson football: Allen, Putnam named to Watchlists for awards

It’s award Watchlist season for those not yet paying attention to Clemson football.  Will Shipley is on both the Doak and Maxwell Awards list and now comes word that Davis Allen was named to the Mackey Award list and Will Putnam to the Rimington Trophy List.

The Mackey Award is given each year to the outstanding collegiate tight end as voted on by the John Mackey Award Selection Committee.

It’s not a short list (54), multiple teams have multiple tight ends on the list, but it’s a significant award and an honor to be on the list for Allen.

Allen has accumulated 49 career catches for 508 yards and 7 touchdowns in his career at Clemson and has proven to be a versatile and consistent receiving threat over the years.

The selection committee includes Dallas Clark, Lee Corso and Phil Steele and many others among their voters.

The Rimington Trophy has only 40 centers on the Watchlist and incorporated PFF grades as part of their criteria.

"This year, the Trophy committee worked with Pro Football Focus (PFF) to narrow down its list to the top 40 centers. PFF grades every player on every play of every game on how well they execute their given assignment. That play-by-play grading allowed the Trophy committee to create a watchlist based both on nominations from the schools and data provided by PFF. Once the season begins, schools will be able to nominate their centers for late addition based on in-season merit."

Putnam, of course, was recently moved to center, so it’s interesting he’s on the list, though the criteria above does allow for “nominations from the schools” as part of it’s criteria.

The site goes into great detail on how the winner is picked, but even with the detail it’s more clear cut than a selection committee.

In part:

"The winner of the Rimington Trophy will be selected by determining the consensus All-American center pick from three existing All-America Teams.While more than a dozen All-America football teams are selected annually, the Rimington Trophy committee will use these prestigious teams to determine a winner:Walter Camp Foundation (WCF)Sporting News (SN)Football Writers Association of America (FWAA)"

Additional details can be found here.