Dick Butkus Award is a Complete Joke

Left it all on the field, as usual.

Left it all on the field, as usual.

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If the Dick Butkus Award selection committee got points for honesty, probably all of them would admit to skipping the Notre Dame vs. Temple football game on Saturday night. The award is supposed to go to the nation’s best linebacker.

One of the linebackers in that game had 13 tackles and an interception and is the nation’s leading active career tackler and the only player in the FBS to lead his team in tackles for all eight games. Another had 10 tackles and no interceptions, is not the FBS career leader in tackles nor has led his team in tackles in each and every game.

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The guy with 13 tackles and an interception, Temple’s Tyler Matakevich, was left off the list of Dick Butkus Award semifinalists released by the committee on Monday. The guy with the 10 tackles, Notre Dame’s Jaylon Smith, was on it. There were 10 linebackers on that semifinal list and not to include Matakevich should be enough evidence to get every member of that committee fired.

The argument extends beyond that single game and the comparison with that single foe. It is supposed to be an award based on this single season of performance in the college football realm alone, not on where the guy projects in the NFL draft. On their criteria, it is hard for the committee to make a case for any of the 10 being better than Matakevich.

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Along with Smith, the following are the semifinalists:  Kendall Beckwith and Deion Jones of LSU, Su’a Cravens of USC, Kyler Frackrell of Utah State, Leonard Floyd of Georgia,   Blake Martinez of Stanford, Raekwon McMillan of Ohio State, Antonio Missison of Florida and Reggie Ragland of Alabama.

For the season—and that’s what this award is based on—Matakevich has 78 tackles, four sacks and five interceptions for the 7-1 Owls and has led a defense that is ranked No. 9 nationally in scoring defense (15.8 ppg.). He has more sacks and more interceptions than anyone on that list and only one player has more tackles.

Certainly, it cannot be because Matakevich plays for a Group of Five team because he has reserved his two best games against Power 5 teams—a 27-10 win over a 6-2 Penn State team and a 24-20 loss to No. 8 Notre Dame. Plus, Frackwell–wit his measly 53 tackles and no interceptions by comparison–is on the list and he’s on G5 team. If the Dick Butkus Committee is going exclude Group of 5 linebackers, it should say so in the criteria. Otherwise, this award is a complete farce.

In almost every category across the board, No. 8 ranks No. 1.

In almost every category across the board, No. 8 ranks No. 1.

The hard numbers suggest none of these linebackers rate on a par with Matakevich, let alone deserve to jump over him. Craven has 50 tackles and two interceptions. Beckwith and Jones are tied for the LSU team lead with 51 tackles and only Jones has interceptions (two).  Frackwell has 53 tackles and no interceptions.  Floyd no interceptions and 44 tackles.  Martinez has 91 tackles, but only one interception. McMillan has 74 tackles and no interceptions and there is a poll on one Ohio State website questioning whether he is even the best linebacker on the Buckeyes, let alone one of the top 10 in the nation. Missison has 60 tackles and no interceptions and Ragland has 71 tackles and no interceptions.

No one has made the kind of impact in the nation and on his own team as Matakevich and the Butkus Award committee should be ashamed to leave this young man off a final list of 10. There can be no valid reasons for this sloppy work, just excuses.

A Special Milestone for Tyler Matakevich

One more tackle to No. 400

One more tackle to No. 400

If Tyler Matakevich was playing baseball instead of football on Saturday night, they would stop the game and give him the ball for what he is about to do and, while it’s not a home run, it will be just as significant.

Instead, when Matakevich gets his next tackle, which will be his No. 400 career one, against visiting Central Florida, the AAC game will go on and the Temple football linebacker will have to settle for getting his just rewards at the end of the season. Four hundred is just a number, but add that to all of the other numbers Matakevich has been able to compile over both his career and this season and he is building enough currency to purchase some valuable hardware at the end of the season.

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With just 10 tackles on Saturday, Tyler moves from No. 30 to No. 22 on the all-time list.

Sports are all about numbers, with different numbers meaning different things but some meaning everything. For Matakevich, it’s just one more tackle but it should move him one step closer to winning the Dick Butkus’ Award as the nation’s best linebacker. It certainly will cement his legacy as one of the greatest ever to play on the defensive side of the ball in college football. In college football, 400 tackles means just as much—if not more—than 500 or 600 home runs mean in major league baseball simply because the number of guys who have done both is approximately the same.

Already, Matakevich is the nation’s leading active career tackler in all five NCAA classifications (FBS, FCS and Divisions I-III) and what’s left for him is to add to it in his final season by getting some much-deserved hardware in addition to the Butkus’ Award. One of his top competitors for the trophy, Scooby Wright III of Arizona, has played only one game due to injury. Matakevich has to be considered at the head of this year’s linebacker class.

When it comes to numbers, few have been as impressive as Matakevich. He is the only active FBS player with 100 tackles in each of his last three seasons. This year, he is the only player among FBS teams to lead his team in tackles each game—remarkable on its own, but even more impressive in that his defense is the No. 13-ranked scoring defense in the country. With 44 tackles in five games, he is right on pace for 100 in 12 games and, with the way the unbeaten Owls are playing, they could easily have more games than the regular-season minimum. The Temple school record for tackles, by Steve Conjar (492) clearly is in sight and, should Matakevich reach it, only two players in the history of college football, Boston College’s Luke Kuechly (532) and Houston’s Marcus McGraw (510) will finish ahead of him.

With that career and with this season, that should be more than enough to get Matakevich long overdue recognition.

Tomorrow: Forgetting is Not An Excuse

Saturday: Game Day Preview