This morning, the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame announced the individuals on the 2019 ballot for the College Football Hall of Fame.
The ballot includes 76 players and 6 coaches from the FBS ranks, and 100 players and 32 coaches from the non-FBS level.
Players on the FBS ballot include:
- Flozell Adams, Michigan State
- Michael Bishop, Kansas State
- Terrell Buckley, Florida State
- Brandon Burlsworth, Arkansas
- Keith Byars, Ohio State
- Dallas Clark, Iowa
- Tim Couch, Kentucky
- Eric Crouch, Nebraska
- Eric Dickerson, SMU
- Kevin Faulk, LSU
- Robert Gallery, Iowa
- Tony Gonzalez, Cal
- Jason Hanson, Washington State
- Kevin Hardy, Illinois
- EJ Henderson, Maryland
- Craig Heyward, Pitt
- Torry Holt, NC State
- Raghib Ismail, Notre Dame
- Ray Lewis, Miami (FL)
- Ed McCaffrey, Stanford
- Dan Morgan, Miami (FL)
- Ken Norton Jr., UCLA
- Carson Palmer, USC
- Jake Plummer, Arizona State
- David Pollack, Georgia
- Antwaan Randle El, Indiana
- Ron Rivera, Illinois
- Rashaan Salaam, Colorado
- Aaron Taylor, Notre Dame
- Joe Thomas, Wisconsin
- Lorenzo White, Michigan State
- Steve Wisniewski, Penn State
- Patrick Willis, Ole Miss
- Vince Young, Texas
Former major college coaches on the list include former longtime Troy head coach Larry Blakeney. former Texas Tech, West Virginia, Texas Tech and South Carolina head coach Jim Carlen, longtime college head coach Dennis Erickson, former Memphis head coach Billy Jack Murphy, and head coach at the college level Darryl Rogers.
To even make the ballot is a huge honor, as NFF President and CEO Steve Hatchell noted in the announcement's release.
"It’s an enormous honor to just be on the ballot when you think that more than 5.26 million people have played college football and only 997 players have been inducted. The Hall’s requirement of being a First-Team All-American creates a much smaller pool of about 1,500 individuals who are even eligible. Being in today’s elite group means an individual is truly among the greatest to have ever played the game, and those actually elected to the Class will be part of a momentous year as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of college football in 2019."
Less than .02% of everyone that has played college football makes it to the Hall of fame (997 current members out of about 5.26 million people that have played college football), while an elite group of just 217 coaches have made the hall.
The class will be officially inducted at an awards dinner in New York City on December 10th, 2019 and then enshrined at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta later on that month.