8/6/03 – 2003 Groza Award Preseason
Watch List Announced
A former winner, two former finalists, and
kickers from some of the top-ranked teams in the country
highlight the 2003 Lou Groza Collegiate Place-Kicker Award
Preseason Watch List.
The Watch List is comprised of the top 30
preliminary candidates for the 12th annual Lou Groza Collegiate
Place-Kicker Award, presented by the FedEx Orange Bowl.
The award will be given out during a ceremony on Tuesday,
December 9, 2003, at the Palm Beach Gardens Marriott in
Palm Beach Gardens, FL.
Among those kickers named to the Lou Groza
Award Preseason Watch List are last year’s Lou Groza
Award winner, Nate
Kaeding of Iowa, and the two other finalists for the
award, Ohio State’s Mike Nugent and Oregon’s
Jared Siegel. Also on the list are the kickers from seven
of the eight teams who played in BCS bowl games last season
– Xavier Beitia of Florida State, Billy Bennett of
Georgia, Trey DiCarlo of Oklahoma, Drew Dunning of Washington
State, Kaeding, Ryan Killeen of USC and Nugent. A brief
biography of each player on the Lou Groza Award Watch List
can be found here.
The kickers on the Lou Groza Award Watch List
were chosen based on statistics from the 2002 season and
preseason expectations. However, all Division I-A kickers
are eligible for consideration for the award.
A panel of over 300 people, made up of Division
I-A head coaches, sports writers and sportscasters, conference
representatives, professional kickers, and all previous
Groza Award finalists, vote upon the award. (Complete
list of voters)
The 20 semi-finalists for the Lou Groza Award
will be announced on Monday, November 3, followed two weeks
later by the naming of the three Lou Groza Award finalists
on Monday, November 17.
The award, now in its 12th year, is named
for NFL Hall-of-Fame kicker Lou Groza, who played 21 seasons
with the Cleveland Browns. Groza won four NFL championships
with Cleveland and was named NFL Player of the Year in 1954.
Nicknamed “The Toe,” Groza was one of the first
people to truly make kicking an art form, and he helped
usher in to football the idea that a player could be used
exclusively for kicking.
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