Ohio State center Seth McLaughlin wins Rimington Trophy
COLUMBUS — Center Seth McLaughlin played his last down for Ohio State in the win at Northwestern on Nov. 16 — and he only played in 10 games total for the Buckeyes before going down with a season-ending injury.
That’s not stopping him from becoming an all-time center for the Buckeyes. On Thursday night, McLaughlin won the Rimington Trophy, given annually to the top center in college football.
McLaughlin became the fourth center in Ohio State history to win the award. He joins LeCharles Bentley (2001), Pat Elflein (2016) and Billy Price (2017) as Buckeyes centers to win the award, which has been given out since 2000.
McLaughlin beat out Cooper Mays of Tennessee, whom the Buckeyes host Dec. 21 in the College Football Playoff first round, and Jacob Gideon of Western Michigan. Both of those two played in every game for their respective teams, while McLaughlin only played 10 games before his injury that he suffered the week of the Indiana game.
The senior center McLaughlin is also a Walter Camp First-Team All-American. The Walter Camp team is the first of the Big Five All-America teams from which consensus and unanimous All-America distinction is derived.
The Rimington Trophy committee uses a composite of three major All-America teams — The Walter Camp, The Sporting News and the Football Writers Association of America — to determine the winner. As the committee posted in its press release about the three finalists:
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“The center with the most first team votes will be determined the winner. If there is a tie with first team votes, then the center with the most second team votes will win. If there is still a tie, the winner will be determined by a majority vote from the Rimington Trophy Committee, provided with data from Pro Football Focus.”
After transferring in from Alabama, where he was a multi-year starter but struggled with snapping issues last year, McLaughlin immediately took on a leadership role in the offensive line room and showed that he could be a superstar on the interior of the offensive line.
McLaughlin started each of the Buckeyes’ first 10 games and was the best offensive lineman they had. He went down with that season-ending achilles injury during practice for the Indiana game, ending his college career a few games earlier than expected — and earlier than he hoped.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t deserving of recognition. Turns out he is the best center in college football — and now he has the Rimington Trophy to show for it.
