Arizona State will be well represented on the 2024 College Football Hall of Fame ballot, a list that features defensive lineman, Terrell Suggs, kicker Luis Zendejas, and head coach Darryl Rogers.
The entire list of nominees of the National Football Foundation for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame includes 78 players and nine coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision and as well players and 32 coaches from the divisional ranks.
Suggs who played at ASU between 2000-2002 isn’t only considered one of the best defensive players to ever don the maroon and gold, but also an all-time standout in college football. Following his last season in Tempe, he captured not only the Rotary Lombardi Trophy as the country’s top lineman but also the Bronko Nagurski Trophy for the nation’s top collegiate defensive player, the Morris Trophy for the top defensive lineman in the Pac-10, and the Ted Hendricks Defensive End of the Year Award. He was the first ASU player to win any of those national level awards.
The lineman who prepped locally at Chandler Hamilton High School was the 12th Arizona State player to earn consensus All-American honors. He earned Pac-10 Freshman of the Year and first-team Freshman All-America honors by The Football News, as he became back then only the second true freshman in school history to start the first game of the season and was one of six true freshmen to play his first season. He paced the Sun Devils in sacks and tackles for loss in each of his three seasons, setting the NCAA record for sacks in a season at 24 in the 2002 campaign. That season he also posted a nation-best 31.5 tackles-for-loss in 2002. To this day, Suggs still holds the ASU record for sacks in a season (24), career sacks (44), yards on sacks in a season (171, 2002), career yards on sacks (288), tackles for loss in a season (31.5, 2002) and career tackles for loss (65.5).
The two-time Super Bowl champion was inducted into ASU’s Hall of Fame in 2022.
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Kicker Luis Zendejas, who played at ASU between 1981-84, was a four-time All-Pac-10 selection during his Sun Devil career. In 1983, he led the conference in scoring, which earned him a consensus first-team All-American honor. At the end of his Tempe tenure, a period where he paced his team in scoring for the first three seasons, he was the NCAA’s all-time leader in scoring (380). To this day, he still holds the school record highest PAT percentage (.993).
Zendejas, who was inducted in the AS Hall of Fame in 1995, played three years in the NFL for the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles. He was both an AFL All-Star and an Arena Football champion with Arizona Rattlers in 1993.
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Head coach Darryl Rogers was at the helm in Tempe for five years after arriving from Michigan State, where he was named Big Ten Coach of the Year in 1977 and National Coach of the Year by Sporting News in 1978, when he won the Big Ten. At ASU, he posted a 37-18-1 (.670) mark. In 1982 he led the Sun Devils to one of its biggest accomplishments ever in the postseason, with a victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 1, 1983, which culminated in a 10-2 season.
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The criteria for Hall of Fame consideration include:
• First and foremost, a player must have received First-Team All-America recognition by a selector that is recognized by the NCAA and utilized to comprise its consensus All-America teams.
• A player becomes eligible for consideration by the Foundation’s Honors Courts 10 full seasons after his final year of intercollegiate football played.
• While each nominee’s football achievements in college are of prime consideration, his post-football record as a citizen is also weighed. He must have proven himself worthy as a citizen, carrying the ideals of football forward into his relations with his community. Consideration may also be given for academic honors and whether the candidate earned a college degree.
• Players must have played their last year of intercollegiate football within the last 50 years.* For example, to be eligible for the 2024 ballot, the player must have played his last year in 1974 or thereafter. In addition, players who are playing professionally and coaches who are coaching on the professional level are not eligible until after they retire.
• A coach becomes eligible three full seasons after retirement or immediately following retirement provided he is at least 70 years of age. Active coaches become eligible at 75 years of age. He must have been a head football coach for a minimum of 10 years and coached at least 100 games with a .600 winning percentage.
Once nominated for consideration, all FBS player candidates are submitted to one of eight District Screening Committees, depending on their school’s geographic location, which conducts a vote to determine who will appear on the ballot and represent their respective districts. Each year, approximately 15 candidates, who are not selected for the Hall of Fame but received significant votes in the final selection, will be named automatic holdovers and will bypass the district screening process and automatically appear on the ballot the following year. Additionally, the Veterans Committee may make recommendations to the Honors Court for exceptions that allow for the induction of players who played more than 50 years ago. The Honors Court annually reviews the Hall of Fame criteria to ensure a fair and streamlined process.
The ballot is sent to the more than 12,000 National Football Foundation (NFF) members and current Hall of Famers whose votes will be tabulated and submitted to the Honors Court, which will select the class. The announcement of the 2024 College Football Hall of Fame Class will be made in early 2024, and officially inducted during the 66th NFF Annual Awards Dinner Presented by Las Vegas on Dec. 10, 2024, and permanently immortalized at the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.
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