COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Three Mountain West kickers are among the 20 national semifinalists for the 2023 Lou Groza Collegiate Place-Kicker Award, presented by the Orange Bowl, as announced by the Palm Beach County Sports Commission on Thursday.
Fresno State’s Dylan Lynch, Hawai‘i’s Matthew Shipley and UNLV’s Jose Pizano represent the MW on the list of semifinalists.
Lynch, a sophomore from Bakersfield, California, is 18-for-23 (78.3 percent) on field goals for the season, tying for fourth in the FBS for most makes and sitting third with 2.00 field goals per game. His longest make this year is from 52 yards. He is 32-for-32 on point-after tries this season and has scored 86 points, good for second among MW kickers and eighth in the FBS.
Shipley, a senior from Liberty Hill, Texas, is a semifinalist for the second time (2021). This season, he is 11-for-12 on field goals, ranking seventh in the FBS with a 91.7 percentage. He turned in a pair of career-long 50-yard field goals in Week 10 against Nevada, becoming the first player in program history with two 50-yard makes in the same game. He is perfect on 24 PATs this season and has scored 57 points for the Rainbow Warriors.
Pizano, a senior from Lehi, Utah, in his first season at UNLV, is 19-for-20 on field goal attempts this season. He ranks fourth in FBS with 95.0 percentage and second in field goals made per game with 2.11. His 19 makes are just one back of the FBS lead. A perfect 38-for-38 on PATs, Pizano ranks fourth in the FBS with 10.4 points per game and second with 94 points scored overall. He matched the MW record and set a program mark with six made field goals against Colorado State in Week 8, including the game-winner as time expired, leading to him being named a Lou Groza National Collegiate Place Kicker Award Star of the Week and the College Football Network Co-Special Teams Player of the Week. He was also a Lou Groza Star of the Week for his efforts in Week 3, when he hit the game-winning field goal with five seconds left to lead UNLV past Vanderbilt.
Semifinalists will be voted on by a panel of more than 100 FBS head coaches, SIDs, media members, former Groza finalists, and current NFL kickers to select the three finalists. These finalists will be announced on Nov. 28 and honored at the 32nd annual Lou Groza Collegiate Place-Kicker Awards Banquet on Dec. 4 in Palm Beach County. The same panel then selects the winner, who will be announced live on ESPN during the Home Depot College Football Awards on Friday, Dec. 8.
The Award is named for National Football League Hall of Fame kicker Lou “The Toe” Groza, who played 21 seasons with the Cleveland Browns. Groza won four NFL championships with Cleveland and was named NFL Player of the Year in 1954. Although an All-Pro offensive lineman as well, Groza ushered in the notion that there should be a place on an NFL roster for a kicker.
Since the first Lou Groza Award was handed out in 1992, 28 finalists, including 16 winners, have gone on to appear in the NFL, earning 13 trips to the Pro Bowl and taking home seven Super Bowls. That list includes 2023 NFL kickers Randy Bullock, Daniel Carlson, Jake Elliott, Ka’imi Fairbairn, Graham Gano, Matt Gay, Dustin Hopkins, Younghoe Koo, Jake Moody, and Cairo Santos.
