Joe Moore Award Unveils Its 2026 Preseason Watch List

ALL 138.

Every FBS program is on it. The film decides who stays.

[New York, NY] — [August 24, 2026] — The Joe Moore Award — college football's only major honor for the most outstanding offensive line in the country — today released its 2026 preseason watch list. It includes every team in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

All 138 of them.

The Joe Moore Award honors a unit, not individuals: the toughest, most physical offensive line in the country. An offensive line unit is five or more players who win and lose together, snap after snap, and not a single one of them has blocked a down of the 2026 season yet.

“You just can't rank offensive lines in July,” said Aaron Taylor, the award's founder, a 2021 College Football Hall of Fame inductee and a CBS Sports college football analyst. “It's hard enough once the games start, which is why we don't drop our first in-season recognition until after Week 6. We've learned that's how long it takes for the cream to begin to rise.”

"Not all 138 of these o-lines have the talent, desire, and cohesiveness to win this award," said Cole Cubelic, chairman of the Joe Moore Award Voting Committee and a college football analyst for ESPN and the SEC Network. "But we can't eliminate anybody before we've watched them play. So we will study each and every one of them. From there, the tape does the cutting."

The award knows what could happen if you cut early. Army won the 2024 Joe Moore Award with no preseason hype at all — the first service academy and the first Group of Five program to earn the trophy. The Black Knights wouldn't have been on an exclusive list that July.

A shorter list might get us more attention. We'll take the one that accurately represents our process.

To be clear, the list narrows from here: a midseason honor roll on Tuesday, Oct. 13; the Joe Moore Award Semifinalists presented by Johnsonville on Tuesday, Nov. 10; the Joe Moore Award Finalists presented by Johnsonville on Tuesday, Dec. 1, once the regular season is complete; and then, in mid-December, one offensive line earns the right to lift all 800 pounds of this trophy.

The list starts big and gets shorter because the standard gets tougher to earn and hold.

This trophy doesn't care who looks best in July. It cares who proves it in the fall.

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About the Joe Moore Award

The Joe Moore Award is named after Joe Moore, widely regarded as one of the best offensive line coaches in college football history, most notably for his work at Notre Dame and the University of Pittsburgh. Coach Moore sent 52 players on to the NFL, including Bill Fralic, Mark May, Russ Grimm, Jimbo Covert, Andy Heck and others. The Joe Moore Award trophy, crafted by legendary sports sculptor Jerry McKenna, is the largest trophy in college football, standing at a height of seven feet and weighing in at more than 800 pounds. The perpetual trophy is made available for display by the winning university until the conclusion of the following college football season.

About The Foundation for Teamwork

The Foundation for Teamwork is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to fostering teamwork in all societal endeavors and bringing that spirit of collective achievement to athletics, education, and organizations.

Learn More or Follow Us

Find out more at joemooreaward.com and follow the Joe Moore Award on YouTube (www.youtube.com/@joemooreaward2015), X (@joemooreaward), Instagram (@joemooreaward), and Facebook (facebook.com/JoeMooreAward).

For media inquiries, please contact Johnathan McGinty at johnathan@trestlecollective.com.

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