{"id":65423,"date":"2024-09-30T07:00:50","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=65423"},"modified":"2025-09-18T11:27:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T15:27:33","slug":"ten-acc-players-up-for-national-man-of-the-year-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/09\/30\/ten-acc-players-up-for-national-man-of-the-year-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten ACC Players Up For National Man of the Year Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten players from the ACC are on the watch list for the National Man of the Year award. The Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year<\/a> panel has released it first list of the 2024 process and 10 ACC players have made the cut.<\/p>\n

The Award<\/h3>\n

The award, named after the former Dallas Cowboys tight end, is designed to focus primarily on a player\u2019s leadership skills<\/a> on and off the field. Statistics play only a minor role in the consideration, according to the SCORE Foundation, Witten\u2019s organization in charge of the award.<\/p>\n

When Witten was with the Cowboys, he became the first player ever to win the Bart Starr Award and the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award in the same season, (2012).<\/p>\n

ACC Nominees<\/h3>\n

The ACC players on the watchlist are:<\/p>\n

Fernando Mendoza, Cal, Quarterback<\/p>\n

Phil Mafah, Clemson, Running back<\/p>\n

Kevin Knowles II, Florida State, Defensive back<\/p>\n

Kaimon Rucker, North Carolina, Edge Rusher<\/p>\n

Brandon Cleveland, NC State, Defensive tackle<\/p>\n

Brandon George, Pitt, Linebacker<\/p>\n

Tristan Sinclair, Stanford, Linebacker<\/p>\n

Justin Barron, Syracuse, Defensive back<\/p>\n

Jaylin Lane, Virginia Tech, Wide receiver<\/p>\n

Taylor Morin, Wake Forest, Wide receiver<\/p>\n

The Process<\/h3>\n

There are 50 players on this first list of nominees. The last two winners of the award have come from the ACC. Running back Mike Hollins from Virginia won it in 2023. Deslin Alexandre, the defensive end from Pitt won it in 2022. This will be the eighth year the award is presented. The winner will get a $10,000 contribution made in his name to his school\u2019s athletic scholarship fund.<\/p>\n

The watch list will be pared down to 20 semifinalists that will be announced on Tuesday, October 22. Three finalists will be named for the award on Monday, December 16. The winner will be announced at the award ceremony at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Wednesday, February 12, 2025.<\/p>\n

\"Ten
Photo courtesy: Ken Ruinard-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ten players from the ACC are on the watch list for the National Man of the Year award. The Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year panel has released it first list of the 2024 process and 10 ACC players have made the cut. The Award The award, named after the former Dallas Cowboys tight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":65426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,35636],"tags":[102,38,4961,256,200,306,100,1249],"class_list":["post-65423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-acc","category-florida-state-seminoles","tag-acc","tag-florida-state-seminoles","tag-jason-witten","tag-pitt-panthers","tag-stanford-cardinal","tag-syracuse-orange","tag-virginia-tech-hokies","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80055,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65423\/revisions\/80055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}