Krutilla on Rimington Trophy Watch List

Krutilla on Rimington Trophy Watch List
Courtesy: Mat Kanan, associate director of athletic media relations

Courtesy: WMU

KALAMAZOO, Mich. – Western Michigan’s Robbie Krutilla was named to the 2006 Rimington Trophy Watch List this week. The award given to the nation’s best collegiate offensive center.

Krutilla was the personification of consistency in 2005. The sophomore started all 11 games for the second-straight season and was named All-MAC by Phil Steele. The Summit, Ill., native appeared on every one of the Broncos’ 834 offensive snaps last season and a career-high 93 against Ball State. He also appeared on three special teams plays against the Cardinals.

Krutilla was also recently named preseason All-MAC by the MAC Report Online.

The 39-player list is comprised of five sophomores, 11 juniors and 23 juniors. Krutilla is one of only two Mid-American Conference footballers to find their name on the list. Bowling Green’s Kory Lichtensteiger is the other.

This season marks the seventh year of the Rimington Trophy recognizing the most outstanding center in college football and the first as a Regular Member of the National College Football Awards Association (NCFAA).

Named after Nebraska’s College Football Hall of Fame center, winners of the Rimington awards are selected by Don Hansen, founder and publisher of the National Weekly Football Gazette. Rimington began presenting them in 2003, three years after Boomer Esiason’s foundation created the Rimington Trophy for Division I-A’s premier center.

The 1-A recipient is the consensus All-America center on teams that are compiled by the Walter Camp Foundation, American Football Coaches Association, the Sporting News, and Football Writers Association of America. Its 2005 awardee was Minnesota’s Greg Eslinger, who received the trophy at a testimonial banquet in Lincoln, Neb., on Jan. 7.

In 1993, when his two-year-old son, Gunnar, was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, Esiason, a dynamic NFL quarterback from 1984 thru ’97, launched the Boomer Esiason Foundation (BEF) to raise funds for the treatment and research of that genetic disease.

2006 Spring Rimington Trophy Watch List

Pete Bier – Army

Mark Bihl - Michigan

Antoine Caldwell - Alabama

Aaron Danenhauer - Tulsa

Robby D’Angelo - Southern Mississippi

Kyle DeVan - Oregon State

Sterling Doty - Houston

Robby Felix - UTEP

Mark Fenton - Colorado

Dustin Fry - Clemson

Cedric Gagne-Marcoux - Central Florida

Leroy Harris - North Carolina State

Tanner Jenkins - Arkansas State

Brandon Jones - Texas Tech

Nick Jones - Georgia

Ryan Kalil - Southern California

Jason Karcher - Wyoming

Adam Korby - Idaho

Robbie Krutilla - Western Michigan

Doug Legursky - Marshall

Kory Lichtensteiger - Bowling Green

Enoka Lucas - Oregon

Jonathan Luigs - Arkansas

Kurt Mann - Nebraska

Dan Mozes - West Virginia

Dave Ochoa - Kansas

James Rossi - Navy

Samson Satele - Hawaii

Lyle Sendlein - Texas

Stephen Schuh - Memphis

Adam Spieker - Missouri

Darnell Stapleton - Rutgers

Scott Stephenson - Iowa State

John Sullivan - Notre Dame

Cody Wallace - Texas A&M

Chris White - South Carolina

Anthony Wollschlager - Miami

Eric Wood - Louisville

Kyle Young - Fresno State


Information regarding the Rimington Trophy was compiled from www.rimingtontrophy.com.