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PSU's Paterno Collects Three National Coach of the Year Awards
Dec. 22, 2005
The Big Ten continued to collect national accolades with Penn State's Joe Paterno being tabbed as the Associated Press, Home Depot and Sporting News National Coach of the Year. The conference collected three of the four national honors announced by Sporting News, with Ohio State linebacker A.J. Hawk picking up National Defensive Player of the Year laurels and Northwestern running back Tyrell Sutton earning National Freshman of the Year accolades. In addition, 12 Big Ten standouts were named All-Americans by the Associated Press and Sporting News. In his 40th season as head coach, Paterno has led the Nittany Lions to a 10-1 record, a share of the Big Ten Championship and the conference's automatic berth into the Bowl Championship Series. Penn State will clash with ACC Champion Florida State in the FedEx Orange Bowl on January 3. Paterno is also a finalist for the Munger Award, the Eddie Robinson Award and the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) National Coach of the Year Award. He has won an unprecedented four AFCA National Coach of the Year awards, as the only other major college coaches to earn AFCA Coach of the Year more than once are Paul "Bear" Bryant (on three occasions) and John McKay and Darrell Royal (on two occasions each). Paterno is second in all-time victories among major college coaches and fourth in wins across all four NCAA divisions with a 353-117-3 career record. Hawk, who also won the Rotary Lombardi Award, was named Sporting News National Defensive Player of the Year. The Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year is the only defender to rank among the conference's top five in tackles, sacks and tackles for loss in all games and led an attack that topped all schools in scoring, total, rushing and passing defense. Sutton was honored as Sporting News National Freshman of the Year after ranking fifth in the nation with 1,390 rushing yards and eighth with 18 touchdowns. In addition to the individual accolades, Hawk was joined by Minnesota's Greg Eslinger and the Penn State duo of Tamba Hali and Paul Posluszny as first-team All-America selections by both the Associated Press (AP) and Sporting News. Iowa's Chad Greenway, Minnesota's Mark Setterstrom, Penn State's Alan Zemaitis and Wisconsin's Brian Calhoun were tabbed second-team All-Americans by both groups. The AP second team also featured the Nittany Lions' Levi Brown and the Badgers' Brandon Williams while the Sporting News second team included the Buckeyes' Bobby Carpenter. The Gophers' Laurence Maroney joined Carpenter on the AP third team.
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