2014 Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year - Finalists
The FootballScoop Coaches of the Year awards, presented by ProGrass, are the only set of awards that recognize the most outstanding position coaches in college football. Finalists were selected based off of nominations by coaches, athletic directors and other athletic department personnel. The winner will be chosen by the previous winners of this award.
The 2014 FootballScoop Coaches of the Year will be recognized and will receive their awards at an event held in their honor at the American Football Coaches Association's annual convention in January in Louisville, KY.
Previous winners of the Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year award are Don Sommer (TCU, 2008), Joey Batson (Clemson, 2009), Kevin Yoxall (Auburn, 2010), Shannon Turley (Stanford, 2011), Kaz Kazadi (Baylor, 2012) and Pat Ivey (Missouri, 2013).
Corey Edmond, Kentucky
In two seasons at Kentucky, Edmond has completely transformed the Wildcats, morphing them from a team that can't compete physically in the SEC into a team that can. A year after only playing one SEC opponent to within one score, the Wildcats were in fourth-quarter games with then-No. 1 Mississippi State, took Florida to three overtimes and mounted a 21-point fourth quarter rally to beat South Carolina. Edmond has worked for all three members of the Stoops family. He helped Oklahoma win a national championship in 2000 under Bob Stoops, then spent eight seasons as the head strength coach at Arizona under Mike Stoops. After a year with N.C. State, Edmond was brought along to Lexington as an original member of Mark Stoops' staff. Overall, Edmond has spent more than two decades in coaching and 18 years in the player development realm.
Zac Woodfin, UAB
It's difficult enough to physically transform a team in a period of two-to-three years. Doing it in one year? That's another thing entirely. Working with first-year head coach Bill Clark, Woodfin helped mold a UAB team that went 2-10 in 2013 into a six-win, bowl eligible team, and a group that played Conference USA champion Marshall to a 23-18 final and that played 10-2 Mississippi State to within 26-20 through one half and wore on them throughout the game. Simply put, the Blazers before Woodfin went to work weren't physically capable of packing that type of punch. "He’s made a tremendous difference with the size of the kids. You can really tell how much bigger that we had gotten. And really comparing ourselves to (opening-weekend win) Troy, you could see the difference. We were bigger than them, and that’s not always been the case in the past," former AD Brian Mackin told FootballScoop in September. A former UAB player, Woodfin served as the emotional heart of the team, whether he was carrying a paralyzed player to the top of the bleachers or leading the charge to keep the football program intact.
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