Bryant Haines of the University of Indiana was named the winner of the 30th-annual Broyles Award Thursday night at Oaklawn in Hot Springs.
Haines is the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach for Indiana, and he helped lead the Hoosiers to the 2025 College Football Playoff national championship. He is a four-time Broyles Award nominee over the past five seasons and a back-to-back finalist as well as the 2025 AFCA Assistant Coach of the Year.
The Broyles Award is presented annually to the nation’s top college football assistant coach. Arkansas Money & Politics is a sponsor of the event.
The award is named for legendary Arkansas coach and athletics director Frank Broyles, and the ceremony is presented by the Frank and Barbara Broyles Foundation. Proceeds benefit Alzheimer’s research. The five finalists honored Thursday were Haines, Mike Bobo, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Georgia; Bryant Haines, ; Corey Hetherman, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach for Miami; Matt Patricia, defensive coordinator for Ohio State; and Shiel Wood, defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach for Texas Tech.
The Broyles Award selection committee is made of former hall of fame coaches, members of the Football Writers Association of America and legendary broadcasters. The selection committee votes to advance five finalists and one overall winner, and for the first time this year, fan voting helped decide the finalists. Nearly 90,000 votes were cast by fans to advance their favorite coach to each round, with LSU’s Blake Baker receiving the most fan votes in the semi-finalist round and Miami’s Corey Hetherman receiving the most fan votes in the finalist round.
Many members of the national media and coaching community were in attendance, including ESPN reporter Holly Rowe and Super Bowl champion and College Football Hall of Famer Mark May, who introduces the finalists each year. Rowe interviewed each finalist as well as coaches in the crowd including former Razorback coach Sam Pittman; former Auburn, UCF and Arkansas State head coach Gus Malzahn, an Arkansas native who was a high-school coaching legend in the state; and new Auburn head coach Alex Golesh.
The Broyles Award has a longstanding reputation for identifying coaching talent that goes on to lead at the highest levels of the sport. Members of the 2019 Broyles Award finalist class now include two NFL head coaches, Joe Brady (Buffalo Bills) and Jeff Hafley (Miami Dolphins), and two college head coaches, Dan Lanning (Oregon) and Morgan Scalley (Utah).
Four Broyles Award Finalists have been named NFL head coaches in last 14 days. Along with Brady and Hafley, Jesse Minter was just named head coach of the Baltimore Ravens and Todd Monken was recently announced as head coach of the Clevland Browns. Both were 2022 Broyles Award finalists. Former Broyles Award finalists and winners in key NFL leadership roles include Dan Quinn, head coach of the Washington Commanders; Al Golden, the 2025 Broyles Award winner at Notre Dame and defensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals; and Jim Leonhard, defensive passing game coordinator for the Denver Broncos.
Since its founding, the Broyles Award has honored 29 winners and more than 100 finalists, including some of the biggest names in college football coaching history such as Steve Sarkisian, Lane Kiffin, Kirby Smart, Lincoln Riley, Gus Malzahn, Marcus Freeman, Pat Narduzzi, Rhett Lashlee, Tony Elliott, Alex Golesh, Will Stein and Brent Venables.
The five finalists were selected from an original group of 64 nominees representing approximately 1,500 assistant coaches from 131 FBS programs across the country.
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