To be remembered as one of the greatest athletes of all time by fans everywhere is certainly a huge honor. To be celebrated for your accomplishments by being inducted into a hall of fame is an even larger honor.
The College Football Hall of Fame Class of 2016 will not be announced until the weekend of the College Football Playoff, but we now have an idea of who is eligible for this year’s class.
According to College Football Talk, the National Football Foundation announced the new ballot for the 2016 class and it has been cut down from over 1,000 former athletes and coaches to 200.
The ballot is still very large and the foundation will cut that list down to fifteen former players and just a handful of coaches.
“The Hall’s requirement of being a First-Team All-American creates a much smaller pool of only 1,500 individuals who are even eligible to be on the ballot, so being in today’s elite group means an individual is truly among the greatest to ever have played the game, and we are proud to announce their names,” NFF president and CEO Steve Hatchell said in a statement. “We look forward to announcing the 2016 Hall of Fame Class on the Friday before the College Football Playoff National Championship.”
The College Football Hall of Fame is slightly different from the professional sports halls of fame. To be eligible for the CFB Hall as a player, you must have been a First Team All-American at least once and finished your career between ten and fifty years ago, a big distinction from the five year requirement in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. As a coach, you must have had to have coached at least 100 games and have won sixty percent of those games coached.
The 2015 Hall of Fame class included names like Brian Bosworth, Ricky Williams, Jim Tressel, and Bill Snyder.
This year, some of the notable names on the ballot are Eric Crouch, Matt Leinart, Ray Lewis, and Derrick Brooks. I don’t have any pull on who will land in the Hall, but if Brooks isn’t there come January of next year, I may just riot.
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to The Chicago Tribune
