The Joe Moore Award has its semifinalists, and the list includes three SEC powers.
On Wednesday, the award committee unveiled its 10 finalists for college football’s top offensive line honor, with Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee all making the cut. The full group also features Boise State, BYU, Duke, Houston, Iowa, Notre Dame and Utah.
The award is meant to spotlight the big men up front - the group doing the dirty work so everyone else can shine. While the sport’s attention often lands on Heisman, Doak Walker and Biletnikoff races, the Joe Moore Award goes to the unit that sets the tone in the trenches.
Cole Cubelic, chairman of the Joe Moore Award voting committee, said, “In a season when consistency has been the hardest thing to find, these units found it, each in its own way,” Cole Cubelic, chairman of the Joe Moore Award voting committee, said. “Although the skill sets and competition levels vary, the standard doesn’t: five men on the same page, physical at the point of attack, looking to finish every snap like it’s the one that decides the game.”
Now comes the stretch that usually separates the good from the truly elite. The final month of the season has a way of exposing offensive lines, and voters tend to remember the groups that hold up when the weather turns and the grind gets heavier.
Aaron Taylor, who played guard at Notre Dame for the award’s namesake, Joe Moore, put it plainly: “The common thread with this year’s semifinalists is their teams are winning because of their offensive lines, not in spite of them,” Aaron Taylor, who played guard at the University of Notre Dame for the award’s namesake, the legendary offensive line coach Joe Moore. “But nobody has reached the top yet. November is where offensive lines get exposed or get remembered, and the climb only gets steeper from here.”
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