Saban, Meyer top College Football Hall of Fame ballot

By Chris Vannini, Kennington Smith III, Cameron Teague Robinson and Pete Sampson

Nick Saban and Urban Meyer are among the notable names on the 2025 College Football Hall of Fame ballot released Monday. Legendary former coaches appear on ballots for the first time.

They are among nine Football Bowl Subdivision coaches on the ballot, including 77 FBS players, 34 division coaches and 101 division players. The full list of candidates can be viewed here.

The National Football Foundation has announced the 2025 College Football Hall of Fame ballot!

Who do you think should join college football’s most elite fraternity?

Click to see the names on the ballot and let us know: https://t.co/oY0NU3awFA#NFF #HonoringLegends pic.twitter.com/BsE2v9fkcm

– National Football Foundation (@NFFNetwork) June 3, 2024

Other first-time nominees include Aaron Donald, Mark Ingram and Manti Te’o. They qualified for the national ballot in their first year running with Kenjon Barner, Alan Faneca, John Henderson, DeSean Jackson, Alex Mack and Steve Slaton.

Additionally, television personality and former NFL player Michael Strahan, who played for Texas Southern from 1989 to 1992, is on the division’s ballot for the first time.

Last year’s Hall of Fame class included 19 first-team All-America players, including Randy Moss, Alex Smith, Larry Fitzgerald and Julius Peppers. It also featured three coaches: Mark Dantonio, Danny Hale and Frank Solich.

“It is a tremendous honor to be enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame, considering that more than 5.7 million people have played college football and only 1,093 players have been inducted,” said Steve Hatchell, president and CEO of the National Football Foundation, in a statement. release. “The Hall’s requirement to be a first-team All-American creates a much smaller pool of about 1,500 people who are even eligible.

“Being part of today’s elite group means an individual is truly among the greatest to ever play the game, and we look forward to announcing the College Football Hall of Fame Class of 2025 early next year.”

Induction into the 2025 class would be the latest honor in a long list of accolades Saban and Meyer have compiled during their championship careers. Saban, widely considered college football’s greatest coach, retired in January after 17 years at Alabama. He won seven national titles as a head coach – six at Alabama and one at LSU. Meyer, who retired from coaching in 2019, won three national championships as a head coach – two at Florida and one at Ohio State.

Details of the 2025 Hall of Fame class reveal will be announced at a later date and the induction will take place at the National Football Foundation’s annual awards dinner on December 9, 2025, in Las Vegas.

Is Saban a must-have?

I like Saban’s chances of getting into the Hall of Fame. He has the most FBS national titles in history and became the first coach to win a title with two different schools. His run ended with 16 consecutive top-10 finishes with the Crimson Tide, including 12 top-five finishes. He also went 9-2 in his only season as Toledo’s head coach in 1990 and inherited a Michigan State-sanctioned program that he led to a 9-point record. -2 and a top-10 ranking in his fifth season. He is the greatest college football coach in history and I imagine his wait at the Hall of Fame won’t be long. — Chris Vannini, Senior College Football Writer

Meyer’s legacy lives on at Ohio State

Meyer’s imprint is still felt at Ohio State. It helps that his successor, Ryan Day, has been his team’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach and has retained many of the same beliefs and expectations that Meyer set during his seven seasons at Ohio State .

But Meyer’s coaching resume was elite even before he took the Ohio State job in 2012. He won three national championships in his 17 years of coaching, two at Florida and one at Ohio State . He has never had a losing season as a head coach, including his two years at Bowling Green State University where he began his career with records of 8-3 and 9-3 during his two years there. It’s only fitting that he’s on the ballot with Saban, the greatest coach in college football and with whom he has a split 2-2 record. — Ohio State beat writer Cameron Teague Robinson

Alabama legends represented on the 2025 ballot

For a program as storied as Alabama, it seems incredible that its first Heisman Trophy winner didn’t come until the late 2000s, but Ingram’s was in 2009. Today, the former running back and Saban, his college coach, are at the College Football Hall. of Fame vote together. Ingram and Saban were early ambassadors of Alabama’s modern era of dominance, culminating with a national championship in 2009.

Saban needs no introduction and Ingram was one of his first hires, arriving when Alabama didn’t have much to prove on the field. He became one of the program’s greatest success stories that paved the way for Alabama to earn the title of “Running Back U” that it carries today in recruiting. Ingram’s presence is still felt in Alabama’s facilities years later as someone who had the Alabama experience well: a two-time All-SEC, 2009 Heisman winner and he accumulated nearly 4,000 career yards. He is now a key member of Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff.

The conversation about Saban’s effect on the program came prematurely given his abrupt retirement in January, and he leaves perhaps the largest shadow in modern college football. His final championship in 2020 propelled him past another Alabama great, Bear Bryant, as the coach with the most championships, marking a legacy defined by reaching the sport’s highest heights. And he delivered to Alabama something no other coach before him has done: the Heisman Trophy, with four winners along the way – starting with Ingram and ending with Bryce Young in 2021.

Two Alabama legends arrived in Tuscaloosa with huge expectations, and both exceeded them and transcended the Crimson Tide brand. Now the two could be Hall of Famers together. — Kennington Smith III, Alabama Editor

Why Te’o is a beloved figure at Notre Dame

For a school with the most College Football Hall of Famers, Te’o still stands out among Notre Dame alumni in this rarefied air. He is without a doubt the most impactful Notre Dame football player of the last 30 years, with apologies to Brady Quinn. The story of Te’o’s senior season was well-told, from its heady highs to its bizarre lows, a narrative arc that has endeared him even more to Notre Dame since his departure.

Unless Notre Dame wins a national championship, it’s hard to imagine a player who could replace Te’o among modern greats. When he returned to campus for the Cal game two years ago, the raucous welcome moved Te’o to tears. There may never be another one like it that comes through South Bend, in terms of hype, talent, production and storytelling. — Pete Sampson, Notre Dame editor

Required reading

(Photo: Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)