The Joe Moore Foundation for Teamwork on Monday presented the Alabama offensive line with the 2020 Joe Moore Award during a surprise virtual presentation in Tuscaloosa’s Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility.
The Crimson Tide previously won this award recognizing the most outstanding offensive line unit in college football in its inaugural year in 2015, making Alabama both the first recipient and first two-time recipient of this prestigious honor.
This season, Bama’s starting o-line has featured senior left tackle Alex Leatherwood (12 starts), redshirt senior left guard Deonte Brown (12 starts), redshirt senior center Landon Dickerson (11 starts), redshirt sophomore Emil Ekiyor, Jr. (12 starts) and sophomore right tackle Evan Neal (11 starts), while redshirt senior Chris Owens has one start at center and one start at right tackle. Leatherwood and Dickerson are both consensus All-Americans.
“I think this is one of the awards that I really cherish the most because it’s one of the few that honors a group of players, and the offensive line is a special group of guys,” Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban said in a statement.
“They all seem to have similar personalities,” he continued. “They all have the same kind of competitive characteristics. They probably play more together as a unit and as a group in terms of how they communicate, how they combination block and all those things than any other group in football. I think this is a tremendous thing that they continue to do in Joe Moore’s honor because it does mean a lot to our group, who has won it before.”
The Joe Moore Award voting committee judges solely on six criteria: toughness, effort, teamwork, consistency, technique and finishing. It is the only award in college football that celebrates a group or unit.
The honor 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. He sent 52 players on to the NFL in his career.
Alabama’s starting offensive line has only allowed quarterback Mac Jones to be sacked nine times in 12 games on 379 drop backs — or one sack per 42.1 drop backs — while Jones leads the nation in passing efficiency. The Tide also ranks second nationally in rushing touchdowns with 35 (2.92 per game) while racking up over 185 yards per game in rushing offense. The offensive front has blocked for the nation’s top-ranked Power Five scoring offense (48.2 ppg), the No. 1 pass efficiency offense (198.48) and No. 5 total offense (535.0).
The veteran group boasts 126 career starts and their play has been the catalyst behind Alabama’s three Heisman Trophy candidates: Najee Harris, Mac Jones and DeVonta Smith (Jones and Smith are two of four finalists, while Harris finished fifth).
The Joe Moore Award trophy, crafted by legendary sports sculptor Jerry McKenna, is the largest trophy in college football, standing at a height of six feet and weighing in at 800 pounds. The perpetual trophy is made available for display by the winning university until the conclusion of the following college football season.
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
