(CHICK-FIL-A PEACH BOWL NEWS RELEASE) – Officials from theBobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation and Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl todayannounced that Memphis head football coach Mike Norvell has been selected asThe Dodd Trophy Coach of the Week.
The Dodd Trophy Coach of the Week award honors a footballcoach who led his team to a significant victory during the previous week, whilealso embodying the award’s three pillars of scholarship, leadership andintegrity.
Considering The Dodd Trophy represents more than just acoach’s performance on the field, a coach in his first year, who has not had afull season to establish his own impact on Academic Progress Rate (APR) and thelocal community, is not eligible to win.
No. 24 Memphis welcomed No. 15 SMU to Liberty Bowl MemorialStadium in a matchup between two ranked American Athletic Conference rivals. Ina high-scoring, back-and-forth affair, Memphis and its 514 yards of totaloffense defeated the Mustangs, 54-48. The win marked Memphis’ highest-rankedwin since 2015, when the Tigers defeated No. 12 Ole Miss, and represented itssixth-straight victory over SMU.
In the latest AP poll, Memphis moved up to No. 19, thehighest ranking for the program since the 2017 season and third highest in theprogram’s history.
“SMU’s run had been the talk of college football this year,and Memphis had been flying under the radar until this marquee win,” said JimTerry, chairman of the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation. “Coach Norvelland his team should be on everyone’s radar now and have positioned themselvesfor a potential New Year’s Six bowl appearance. This was the kind ofhigh-stakes challenge that Coach Dodd loved.”
Norvell is now in his fourth season as the Memphis headfootball coach after winning two American Athletic Conference West Divisiontitles and setting countless school records in his first three seasons with theTigers. He has already set school records for the most wins in the first fourseasons as a head coach (34) and the most wins over a three-year stretch ashead coach in program history (26). In 2018, the Memphis team set new schoolrecords for yards (7,324) and touchdowns (80), breaking records previously setby Norvell. His prolific offenses now account for three of the four bestoffenses in program history.
Norvell’s hire immediately invigorated the Memphis programand while the team continues to climb to new heights on the field, itsperformance in the classroom is just as impressive. The Tigers’ AcademicProgress Rate (APR), a measure of academic performance by programyear-over-year, stands at 976 out of 1000. Norvell takes pride in his players’academic accomplishments and honors them for their work in the classroom withthe Tiger Scholar patch. A total of 52 players who either posted a semester GPAof 3.0 or higher, or already graduated, were presented with the patch thisspring.
Norvell coaches under his own three tenets of “Service,Sacrifice & Respect” and emphasizes his players’ involvement in the Memphiscommunity. Every year, Memphis football players get involved in various eventssuch as the annual “Hope to Dream” bed giveaway, where local children get toplay on the field with Memphis players and are given new bed sets.
“Coach Norvell is one of the brightest young minds in thegame and he brings passion to every phase of developing these young men,” saidGary Stokan, CEO and president of Peach Bowl, Inc. “Memphis should be proud ofthe man that it hired to lead its program. As the team continues to improveevery year, expect Memphis to continue to make noise in the AAC andnationally.”
The Dodd Trophy presented by the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl –along with the Dodd Trophy Coach of the Week Award – celebrates the head coachof a FBS team who enjoys success on the gridiron, while also stressing theimportance of scholarship, leadership and integrity.
A panel consisting of all previous winners, national media,a member of the Dodd family and a College Football Hall of Fame member willidentify the final list of potential recipients at the conclusion of the 2019season. The winner of the 2019 Dodd Trophy will be announced in Atlanta duringbowl week for this year’s College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Chick-fil-APeach Bowl.
