FootballScoop is proud to announce that Derek Owings (Indiana) is the 2054 FootballScoop Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year presented by Teamworks as selected by prior winners.
Indiana's immediate transformation under Curt Cignetti is one of the greatest college football stories of our lifetimes.
Among the losingest power-conference programs in the game's history, the previously-downtrodden Hoosiers are the Big Ten Champions, will open the College Football Playoff at the Rose Bowl as the No. 1 seed, and are quarterbacked by the reigning Heisman Trophy winner. But Indiana's story is about more than just Cignetti, and Indiana's turnaround started before Cignetti and the gang got to Bloomington.
Owings became James Madison's director of strength and conditioning for football in 2020, and since that time his teams have compiled a 62-9 record with at least a share of five conference championships. Owings has trained six players that won a conference offensive or defensive player of the year award, and in addition to Fernando Mendoza's Heisman, Owings also helped James Madison's Mike Greene win the Buck Buchanan Award as the top defensive player in the FCS.
This season, Indiana went toe-to-toe physically with defending national champion Ohio State in their 13-10 Big Ten Championship win, which stands currently as the most monumental victory in program history. In that game, IU limited the Buckeyes to season-lows of 58 rushing yards on 2.23 a carry, and twice turned them away scoreless in the red zone in the second half. In October, Indiana went to Oregon and limited the Ducks to a season-low 81 rushing yards in their 30-20 victory. In November, Indiana had the poise and conditioning to mount a 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drive in the final two minutes to preserve their undefeated season with a 27-24 win at Penn State. In a tied game at Iowa, Indiana went 76 yards in five plays to take the lead with 1:29 to play, then turned the Hawkeyes away with a turnover on downs to seal a road win.
Indiana won every other game to date by double digits.
In all, 16 Hoosiers earned a place on an All-Big Ten team this season, a program record.
A wide receiver and tight end at Eastern Michigan and Mercer, Owings entered the strength field as a graduate assistant at Utah State in 2016. From there, he landed an assistant strength coach position at UCF in 2018 and an associate director position at Texas Tech the following year, which led to Cignetti naming Owings his head strength coach at James Madison in 2020.
The FootballScoop Coaches of the Year awards presented by Teamworks are the only set of awards that recognize the most outstanding position coaches and support staff members in college football. The finalists (AJ Artis [Georgia Tech], Caleb Heim [New Mexico], Tommy Moffitt [Texas A&M] and Owings) were selected based off of nominations by coaches, athletic directors, and athletic department personnel. The prior winners selected this year's winner.
Previous winners of the Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year award are Don Sommer (TCU, 2008), Joey Batson (Clemson, 2009), Kevin Yoxall (Auburn, 2010), Shannon Turley (Stanford, 2011), Kaz Kazadi (Baylor, 2012), Pat Ivey (Missouri, 2013), Zac Woodfin (UAB, 2014), Ken Mannie (Michigan State, 2015), Tim Socha (Washington, 2016), Zach Duval (UCF, 2017), Lew Caralla (Buffalo, 2018), Tommy Moffitt (LSU, 2019), Chad Scott (Coastal Carolina, 2020), Scott Sinclair (Georgia, 2021) Kurt Hester (Tulane, 2022), Dave Feeley (Duke, 2023), Torre Becton (Texas, 2024) and Joe Connolly (Arizona State, 2024).
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