Grantland Rice Trophy

Grantland Rice Trophy
CountryUnited States
Presented byFootball Writers Association of America (FWAA)
History
First award1954
Final award2013
Most recentFlorida State
WebsiteFWAA Awards

The Grantland Rice Trophy was an annual award presented in the United States from 1954 to 2013 to the college football team recognized by the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) as the national champions.

Named for the legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice, the trophy was presented annually after the college football bowl games. A committee of five writers from different areas was appointed each season to select a champion by secret ballot.[1] Voting was conducted initially by a positional voting system but after 1994 by a single-team vote. Beginning in 2002, the FWAA also began issuing a national poll to go along with the Grantland Rice Trophy. The top team in the final poll was awarded the trophy. The trophy itself consisted of a bronze football atop a four-sided pedestal.

On August 26, 2010, the FWAA announced that the 2004 award presented to the USC Trojans had been rescinded, the first time in the award's history that a winner has vacated the honor.[2] The FWAA declined to name a replacement for that year's award.

With the advent of the College Football Playoff (CFP) for the 2014 season, the FWAA quietly retired the Grantland Rice Trophy, joining with the National Football Foundation (NFF) to instead publish the FWAA-NFF Grantland Rice Super 16 Poll during the regular season, with the CFP champion automatically receiving the NFF's MacArthur Bowl Trophy.[3][4]

  1. ^ Jenkins, Dan (September 11, 1967). Laguerre, André (ed.). "This Year The Fight Will Be In The Open". Sports Illustrated. Vol. 27, no. 11. Chicago. pp. 28–34. Retrieved February 8, 2016. [T]he Football Writers Association of America set about naming the national champion in 1954, also after the bowl games. Feeling that a mere vote by the 1,200 members would not be fair because one section might be overloaded, a committee of five supposedly unprejudiced writers from different areas is appointed each season, and they decide by secret ballot.
  2. ^ ESPN.com news services (August 26, 2010). "USC loses Grantland Rice Trophy". ESPNLA.com. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  3. ^ National Football Foundation (January 13, 2015). "Ohio State Recognized as 2014 NFF MacArthur Bowl Recipient". National Football Foundation. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  4. ^ Bohls, Kirk (March 4, 2014). "President's Column: Introducing the FWAA-NFF Grantland Rice Super 16 Poll". The Fifth Down: The online newsletter of the FWAA. Football Writers Association of America. Archived from the original on October 26, 2014. Retrieved October 26, 2014. The FWAA will not give out a trophy to the national champion moving forward, but with this poll we may have some influence on just which team is holding the ultimate trophy on the night of Jan. 12.