College Football

2013 college football's best linebackers: The Butkus watch list

It's a Who's Who of the nation's top linebackers.

By Chris Fuhrmeister@ccfuhr Jul 15, 2013, 10:04am EDT

The Butkus Award's preseason watch list was announced Monday. The award is given each year to college football's best linebacker. Here's the full, official list:

Jerry Attaochu, Georgia Tech
Anthony Barr, UCLA
Lamin Barrow, LSU
Dorian Bell, Duquesne
Greg Blair, Cincinnati
Chris Borland, Wisconsin
Carl Bradford, Arizona State
Preston Brown, Louisville
Jonathan Brown, Illinois
Max Bullough, Michigan State
Carlo Calabrese, Notre Dame
Glenn Carson, Penn State
Steele Divitto, Boston College
Dan Fox, Notre Dame
Jeremiah George, Iowa State
Spencer Hadley, BYU
Bryce Hager, Baylor
Anthony Hitchens, Iowa
Adrian Hubbard, Alabama
Cqulin Hubert, Southeastern Louisiana
Andrew Jackson, Western Kentucky
Jordan Jenkins, Georgia
Derrell Johnson, East Carolina
A.J. Johnson, Tennessee
Christian Jones, Florida State
Eric Kendricks, UCLA
Christian Kirksey, Iowa
Dede Lattimore, South Florida
Boseko Lokombo, Oregon
Khalil Mack, Buffalo
Benardrick McKinney, Mississippi State
Jamal Merrell, Rutgers
James Morris, Iowa
C.J. Mosley, Alabama
Trent Murphy, Stanford
Hayes Pullard, USC
Trevor Reilly, Utah
D.T. Shackelford, Mississippi
Ryan Shazier, Ohio State
Prince Shembo, Notre Dame
Deontae Skinner, Mississippi State
Shane Skov, Stanford
Yawin Smallwood, Connecticut
Telvin Smith, Florida State
Uani Unga, BYU
Kyle Van Noy, BYU
Brandon Watts, Georgia Tech
Derrick Webb, Colorado
Avery Williamson, Kentucky
Chris Young, Arizona State
Jordan Zumwalt, UCLA

Let's go with UCLA's Anthony Barr, BYU's Kyle Van Noy, and Alabama's C.J. Mosley as the favorites, as they're first-teamers on SB Nation's preseason All-America team.

Notre Dame's Manti Te'o won the award last season, making him the first player to win the high school and college versions. The college award has been given out since 1985 while the high school honor -- along with its NFL counterpart -- has existed since 2008.

Boston College's Luke Kuechly won the award in 2011 and Texas A&M's Von Miller took it home in 2010. Rolando McClain was honored while playing for the national champion Alabama Crimson Tide in 2009.

Oklahoma claims the most Butkus winners with four all time whereas six schools -- Alabama, Colorado, Florida State, Illinois, Ohio State and Penn State -- have two winners to their names. Brian Bosworth is the only two-time winner after winning the first two Butkus awards in 1985 and 1986.