Four Buckeyes Make Midseason Lombardi List

Four Buckeyes were among a list of 90 players released on the Rotary Lombardi Award midseason update on Monday afternoon. The award will be presented to the most outstanding lineman of the year.

Tommy Eichenberg, Zach Harrison, Paris Johnson and Dawand Jones all made the cut. There were 15 players from the Big Ten on the list with Ohio State dominating the list.

People may ask why Eichenberg, a linebacker, is on the list but there is more to the criteria than just being a lineman.

• Be a down Lineman, end to end, either on offense or defense, setting up no further than ten (10) yards to the left or right of the ball at the time of the snap.
• Be a Linebacker on defense, setting up no further than five (5) yards deep from the line of scrimmage. 
• Must not come out of the offensive backfield and set up on the line of scrimmage as a Blocker or a Receiver or listed in the program as an Offensive Back or Receiver.

This award has been presented since 1970 and Ohio State players have won the award a total of six times with A.J. Hawk being the last to win it in 2005. He is joined by Orlando Pace (x2), Chris Spielman, John Hicks, and Jim Stillwagon, who won the first Lombardi Award.

Michigan’s Aidan Hutchinson is the most recent winner of the award from the 2021 season.

We will have a cutdown on the list in less than a month when the award announces its semifinalists on November 2^nd. A little more than two weeks after that (November 17^th) the four finalists will be named and the eventual winner will be named on December 7^th.

The Lombardi Award is one of the most recognizable individual awards in college football with the main part of the trophy being a block of granite. That is in honor of the award’s namesake, Vince Lombardi and back to his playing days at Fordham where his offensive line was known as the “Seven Blocks of Granite”.

Voters include Division I coaches, sports media and former winners.

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