DALLAS (FWAA) – The Football Writers Association of America, in conjunction with the Allstate Sugar Bowl, announced 12 finalists for the 2025 Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award Tuesday. The FWAA's National Coach of the Year will be chosen from among a list that includes last year's winner, three returning finalists, a total of six prior finalists and six who have been nominated for the first time. Six of the coaches earned conference championships and seven will lead their teams into the College Football Playoff.
 
The finalists in alphabetical order are Bob Chesney of James Madison, last season's winner in Curt Cignetti of Indiana, Ryan Day of Ohio State, Mike Elko of Texas A&M, Tony Elliott of Virginia, Marcus Freeman of Notre Dame, Clark Lea of Vanderbilt, Jerry Mack of Kennesaw State, Joey McGuire of Texas Tech, Jim Mora of Connecticut, Kirby Smart of Georgia and Jon Sumrall of Tulane.
 
Cignetti, last season's Eddie Robinson Award winner and the leader of the nation's unbeaten top-seeded Playoff team, has a chance to become the first coach to win the award in consecutive seasons. Freeman and Smart are also returning finalists, with Smart earning his fourth nod of the last five seasons. Day earned a spot in 2019 at Ohio State, while two others earned finalist nods at previous schools – Sumrall at Troy in 2022 and 2023, and Elko at Duke in 2021.
 
Chesney, Elliott, Lea, McGuire, Mack, Mora are all first-time finalists and this year marks the first time that James Madison, Virginia, Vanderbilt, Kennesaw State, and Connecticut have had a coach recognized as an Eddie Robinson Award finalist.
 
The finalists have been placed on a ballot which has been sent to the entire FWAA membership. The award honors regular season performance, including conference championship games. The 2025 recipient will be announced on Tues., Dec. 16. The official presentation will be at a reception Sat., Jan. 17, 2026, in Miami, the site of the College Football Playoff National Championship.
 
"We are thrilled to announce our candidates for the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award, " said FWAA 2025 President Bill Bender of The Sporting News. "These are the leaders who, like the legendary coach, embodied the best of college football leadership on and off the field this season for their respective schools."
 
"The Allstate Sugar Bowl is honored to partner with the FWAA to recognize the finalists for the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award," said Dorothy "Dottie" Reese, the President of the Sugar Bowl Committee. "This partnership has allowed us to recognize the best coaches in the nation each year while honoring the memory and the legacy of Louisiana's own Coach Eddie Robinson. We look forward to hosting this year's winner next month in Miami during the weekend of the national championship game."
 
Elko will kick off the Playoff representation among the finalists when Texas A&M hosts Miami in a first-round game Dec. 20. A win there would send the Aggies to face Ohio State in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic. Sumrall takes Tulane on the road to Ole Miss later on Dec. 20, and a win there would advance the Green Wave to face Smart and Georgia in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Chesney and James Madison travel to Oregon in the final first-round game Dec. 20, with a win sending them to the Capital One Orange Bowl and a game against McGuire and Texas Tech. The last two Eddie Robinson winners could potentially face each other in the quarterfinals at the Rose Bowl Presented by Prudential. Cignetti's playoff matchup will pit his Hoosiers against the winner between host Oklahoma and Alabama, which has Kalen DeBoer, the 2023 Eddie Robinson Award winner while at Washington, at the helm.
 
The FWAA has presented a coaching award since the 1957 season when Ohio State's Woody Hayes was named the first recipient. In 1997, the FWAA coaching award was named after the late Robinson, a coaching legend at Grambling State University for 55 seasons.
 
A closer look at the 2025 Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year finalists:
 
Bob Chesney, James Madison: Chesney is in his second season at James Madison and its first Eddie Robinson Award finalist. Chesney has led the Dukes (12-1) into the school's first College Football Playoff and a 21-5 overall record in his two seasons. The 2025 team recorded just the 10th unbeaten conference record (8-0) in Sun Belt history before capturing the program's first SBC title last weekend with a 31-14 win over Troy. He has been another record-setting coach following fellow finalist Cignetti at the JMU helm. One season after leading JMU to its first bowl win in 2024, the SBC Coach of the Year has the Dukes entering the playoff with their highest-ever AP Poll ranking at No. 19. Chesney has accepted the UCLA head coaching position but will lead JMU throughout the Playoff.
 
Curt Cignetti, Indiana: Cignetti is now a two-time and a returning Eddie Robinson finalist following another historic season in Bloomington. No game epitomizes the Hoosiers' recent and remarkable turnaround than last weekend's 13-10 win over No. 1 Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship, where Indiana earned its first win over the Buckeyes since 1988, snapping a 29-game losing streak in the series while ending Ohio State's FBS-leading 16-game win streak. Indiana, under Cignetti as this season's Big Ten Coach of the Year, now holds the nation's longest win streak at 13 games. Cignetti joins former head coach Bill Mallory (1986-87) as the only IU coaches to win Big Ten Coach of the Year accolades in back-to-back seasons and is just the third Big Ten head coach to win the Hayes-Schembechler Coach of the Year in back-to-back seasons. Last season, Cignetti became Indiana's fourth Eddie Robinson Award finalist, following Tom Allen in 2020 and IU's only winner, John Pont in 1967, the last season Indiana won a Big Ten title.
 
Ryan Day, Ohio State: Day guided the Buckeyes as the No. 1 team for 14 weeks this season after Ohio State took down then-No. 1 Texas, 14-7, in the Aug. 30 season-opener. Ohio State achieved an undefeated regular season (12-0) for the sixth time in school history going into the Big Ten Championship, a 13-10 loss to then-No. 2 Indiana. Six Buckeyes are finalists for ten national awards that have been announced thus far. Day has again been a steady winner this season. In his 93 games at Ohio State, 92 of them had OSU ranked in the Associated Press Top 10. Day was also a finalist in 2019 and hopes to join Jim Tressel (2002), Earl Bruce (1979) and Woody Hayes (1957, 1968, 1975) as Eddie Robinson Award winners from OSU.
 
Mike Elko, Texas A&M: Elko has guided Texas A&M (11-1) to its first College Football Playoff appearance and its first 10-win season since 2012. The Aggies, who will host Miami in the first round Dec. 20, set the tone for the season with a dramatic 41-40 win at then-No. 8 Notre Dame on Sept. 13 and parlayed it to a nation-leading three road wins over AP Top 25 opponents. The Aggies won their first seven games in SEC play, the first time to reach a 7-0 record in conference play since 1993 (in the former Southwest Conference). Texas A&M's only other Eddie Robinson finalist was Kevin Sumlin in 2012.
 
Tony Elliott, Virginia: Elliott made the most of his fourth year in Charlottesville, guiding the Cavaliers to only their second 10-win season (10-2) and a spot in the ACC Championship for only the second time and first since 2019. The ACC's Coach of the Year had Virginia alone at the top of the conference standings for the first time and tied the program record with seven ACC wins. Picked 14th in the ACC's preseason poll, the Cavs' five-win improvement from last season is tied for the best in program history and fourth-best in the FBS this season. Virginia, now bound for the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl, closed the regular season by ending its four-game losing streak to rival Virginia Tech with a resounding 27-7 win. Elliott is Virginia's first Eddie Robinson Award finalist.
 
Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame: Freeman led the Fighting Irish to a 10-game win streak after an 0-2 start, all of it with a freshman quarterback in CJ Carr. Freeman helped turn the season around behind Carr, who closed the season with 2,741 passing yards and 24 touchdowns and is fifth nationally in yards per attempt and passing efficiency. Running back Jeremiyah Love became the second-fastest Notre Dame running back in the modern era and fourth-fastest in program history to reach 2,000 career rushing yards and is a Heisman Trophy and Doak Walker Award finalist. Freeman, a repeat finalist, is the sixth Notre Dame coach to be an Eddie Robinson Award finalist. Brian Kelly (2012), Charlie Weis (2005), Lou Holtz (1988) and Ara Parseghian (1964) are previous winners. Notre Dame has concluded its 2025 season.
 
Clark Lea, Vanderbilt: Lea is at the helm of a Vanderbilt program that just achieved its first 10-win season and finished 6-2 in SEC play. The six SEC wins are a program record and come with three wins over top-15 teams and four ranked teams overall, another program record. Following its 31-7 win at South Carolina on Sept. 13, Vanderbilt was ranked in the AP poll and hasn't left in the 12 polls since. The Commodores eventually ascended to their first appearance in the AP top 10 since 1947. Lea has guided Vandy to consecutive postseason bowl berths for just the second time as it heads to the ReliaQuest Bowl to face Iowa on Dec. 31 with Heisman and Davey O'Brien Award finalist Diego Pavia under center. Lea is Vanderbilt's first Eddie Robinson Award finalist.
 
Jerry Mack, Kennesaw State: Mack is in his first season at Kennesaw (10-3) and is the first FWAA awardee of any kind at the school. Mack to a roster full of transfers with the fifth-fewest returners (43) in the FBS and molded it into a 10-3 conference champion. The Owls went 7-1 in Conference USA play and won the league title last week, 19-15 over Jax State. They'll play in the New Orleans Bowl in just their second year in the FBS and first year of bowl eligibility. Kennesaw State, picked next-to-last in CUSA's preseason poll, did it on both sides of the ball, leading CUSA in scoring (34.5) and finishing third in points allowed (25.1). Kennesaw State's six one-possession wins are the most in FBS, and the Owls' eight-win improvement from 2024 (2-10) to 2025 (10-3) is the largest by a CUSA team since 2017.
 
Joey McGuire, Texas Tech: McGuire has led one of the great stories in college football this season as No. 4 Texas Tech ascended through the Big 12 schedule and the national rankings to earn its first Big 12 title in program history, its first outright conference title since 1955 and first league title since 1994 in the former Southwest Conference. In Texas Tech's (12-1) first appearance in the Big 12 Championship Game it routed BYU 34-7 to gain 12 wins in a season for the first time. All 12 wins have come by 20 or more points, joining the 2018 Alabama unit as the only teams in FBS/FCS (1978) history to have its first 12 wins of a season come by 20-points or more. Texas Tech, seeded fourth, has a bye into the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff, where it will play the James Madison-Oregon winner in the Capital One Orange Bowl. McGuire is Texas Tech's second Eddie Robinson Award finalist, joining the late Mike Leach from 2007.
 
Jim Mora, Connecticut: Mora has steered a remarkable turnaround at UConn over his four seasons, culminating this season with its first back-to-back bowl appearances in its FBS era and back-to-back nine-win seasons. UConn (9-3) was 6-0 at home and is 20-7 overall over its last 27 games. The Huskies list in the top 20 in passing yards (301.1, sixth), total offense (460.1, 18th), sacks (3.00, ninth) and turnover margin (1.17, fourth). Mora took UConn to a bowl game in three of his four seasons there. He is the first Eddie Robinson Award finalist at UConn. Mora has accepted the head coaching position at Colorado State and will not see UConn through its postseason, where it will battle Army in the Wasabi Fenway Bowl on Dec. 27.
 
Kirby Smart, Georgia: Smart returns to the list earning his fifth (in 10 seasons at Georgia) Eddie Robinson Award finalist nod with previous nominations in the 2017, '21, '22 and '24 seasons. Smart has guided the Bulldogs (12-1) to their third SEC championship in the last four seasons and his fourth as a head coach, toppling Alabama 28-7 last week. Georgia won back-to-back SEC titles for the first time since its three-year run in 1980-82, and Georgia's fifth straight SEC Championship Game appearance ties for the conference record. It's a sixth consecutive season for the Bulldogs to have at least 12 wins. Georgia's senior class is 51-5 as it heads into the College Football Playoff, again awaiting the winner between Tulane and Ole Miss for an Allstate Sugar Bowl quarterfinal showdown. Vince Dooley is Georgia's only previous Eddie Robinson Award winner from the 1980 season. Jim Donnan was a finalist in 1997.
 
Jon Sumrall, Tulane: Sumrall took a Tulane (10-2) team returning only four starters this season into the College Football Playoff with an American Conference championship in tow. The two-time finalist while at Troy (2022, '23) has now made four conference championship game appearances in his first four years as a head coach, becoming the only coach in FBS history to do so at two different schools. The 10 wins to date this season push Sumrall's 42-11 head coaching record (.792) to the fifth-highest winning percentage among active FBS coaches, trailing only Day, Dan Lanning (Oregon), Smart and Cignetti. Tulane travels to Ole Miss for a CFP first-round game Dec. 20, a rematch of one of Tulane's two losses (45-10) this season. Sumrall is the third Tulane coach to be an Eddie Robinson Award finalist, joining Willie Fritz (2022) and Tommy Bowden (1998). Sumrall has accepted the head coach position at Florida but will continue guiding Tulane through the remainder of its 2025 season.
 
Robinson, who passed away in 2007, won 70.7 percent of his games during his illustrious career. Robinson's teams won or tied for 17 Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) championships after joining the league in 1959. His Tigers teams won nine Black College Football Championships during his career, all of it at Grambling.
 
The Eddie Robinson Award is a member of the National College Football Awards Association. Founded in 1997, the NCFAA includes college football's most prestigious awards and its 25 awards have honored more than 900 recipients dating back to 1935. For more information about the NCFAA and its award programs, visit NCFAA.org.
 
The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 29 national champions, 110 Hall of Fame players, 55 Hall of Fame coaches and 21 Heisman Trophy winners in its 91-year history. The 92nd Allstate Sugar Bowl Football Classic, which will serve as a College Football Playoff Quarterfinal, is scheduled to be played on January 1, 2026. In addition to football, the Sugar Bowl Committee annually invests over $1 million into the community through the hosting and sponsorship of sporting events, awards, scholarships and clinics. Through these efforts, the organization supports and honors thousands of student-athletes each year, while injecting over $2.5 billion into the local economy in the last decade. For more information, visit www.AllstateSugarBowl.org.
 
Founded in 1941, the Football Writers Association of America consists of journalists, broadcasters, publicists, photographers and key executives in all areas of college football. The FWAA works to govern media access and gameday operations while presenting awards and honors, including an annual All-America team. For more information about the FWAA and its programs and initiatives, contact Executive Director Steve Richardson at 214-870-6516 or tiger@fwaa.com.
 
ALL-TIME FWAA NATIONAL COACHES OF THE YEAR
1957: Woody Hayes, Ohio State
1958: Paul Dietzel, LSU
1959: Ben Schwartzwalder, Syracuse
1960: Murray Warmath, Minnesota
1961: Darrell Royal, Texas
1962: John McKay, USC
1963: Darrell Royal, Texas
1964: Ara Parseghian, Notre Dame
1965: Duffy Daugherty, Michigan State
1966: Tom Cahill, Army
1967: John Pont, Indiana
1968: Woody Hayes, Ohio State
1969: Bo Schembechler, Michigan
1970: Alex Agase, Northwestern
1971: Bob Devaney, Nebraska
1972: John McKay, USC
1973: Johnny Majors, Pitt
1974: Grant Teaff, Baylor
1975: Woody Hayes, Ohio State
1976: Johnny Majors, Pitt
1977: Lou Holtz, Arkansas
1978: Joe Paterno, Penn State
1979: Earle Bruce, Ohio State
1980: Vince Dooley, Georgia
1981: Danny Ford, Clemson
1982: Joe Paterno, Penn State
1983: Howard Schnellenberger, Miami
1984: LaVell Edwards, BYU
1985: Fisher DeBerry, Air Force
1986: Joe Paterno, Penn State
1987: Dick MacPherson, Syracuse
1988: Lou Holtz, Notre Dame
1989: Bill McCartney, Colorado
1990: Bobby Ross, Georgia Tech
1991: Don James, Washington
1992: Gene Stallings, Alabama
1993: Terry Bowden, Auburn
1994: Rich Brooks, Oregon
1995: Gary Barnett, Northwestern
1996: Bruce Snyder, Arizona State
EDDIE ROBINSON COACH OF THE YEAR
1997: Mike Price, Washington State
1998: Phillip Fulmer, Tennessee
1999: Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech
2000: Bob Stoops, Oklahoma
2001: Ralph Friedgen, Maryland
2002: Jim Tressel, Ohio State
2003: Nick Saban, LSU
2004: Urban Meyer, Utah
2005: Charlie Weis, Notre Dame
2006: Greg Schiano, Rutgers
2007: Mark Mangino, Kansas
2008: Nick Saban, Alabama
2009: Gary Patterson, TCU
2010: Chip Kelly, Oregon
2011: Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State
2012: Brian Kelly, Notre Dame
2013: Gus Malzahn, Auburn
2014: Gary Patterson, TCU
2015: Kirk Ferentz, Iowa
2016: Mike MacIntyre, Colorado
2017: Scott Frost, UCF
2018: Bill Clark, UAB
2019: Ed Orgeron, LSU
2020: Jamey Chadwell, Coastal Carolina
2021: Luke Fickell, Cincinnati
2022: Sonny Dykes, TCU
2023: Kalen DeBoer, Washington
2024: Curt Cignetti, Indiana