Your Annual Reminder That Awards Watch Lists Are Pointless

The Rimington Trophy spring watch list is out, highlighting "the best centers in Division I football." I'm sorry, I left off a part of that quote. The watch list contains the names of "64 of the best centers in Division I football." (Though the website, we should point out, only has 33 names.)

There are 125 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. So more than half of the likely starting centers in the nation are on the watch list. Keep that in mind when you see that 11 SEC centers are on the list.

And this isn't just about the Rimington Trophy watch list; most of the preseason awards watch lists you'll see are equally worthless. (Some of the others are probably a little bit better about getting all the names on the Internet in a proper fashion, but that's neither here nor there.)

Preseason watch lists are good for college football PR folks, who can tout the number of players their teams have on watch lists. But if you're trying to figure out who has a chance to win and if your favorite player is really in the running, they don't do you any good. Ignore them and look for other indicators of how good your football team is going to be.