Hopkins' Margraff Named AFCA Region 2 Coach of the Year
WACO, TX - Johns Hopkins University head football coach Jim Margraff added another honor to his already distinguished resume today as he was named the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Division III Region 2 Coach of the Year. This is the first time Margraff has been selected as the AFCA Regional Coach of the Year, an honor he adds this season to his previous selection as the Centennial Conference Coach of the Year.
Margraff guided the Blue Jays to a 10-1 record, the team's third consecutive Centennial Conference title and a trip to the NCAA Playoffs. Johns Hopkins was ranked as high as 10th in the AFCA Division III Poll, the highest in-season ranking in school history, and the Blue Jays extended their winning streak to a school-record 15 games prior to falling in the first round of the NCAA Playoffs. Johns Hopkins featured one of the most balanced teams in the nation as the Blue Jays ranked among the national leaders in scoring offense (39.8), total offense (492.7), scoring defense (13.1) and total defense (244.3). JHU's marks this season for scoring offense and total offense are both school records.
The 10 wins for the Blue Jays this season tied the Johns Hopkins record, while the 10-0 regular season record marked the first perfect regular season in school history. Hopkins was also undefeated in the Centennial Conference (9-0) for the first time and JHU's current 13-game winning streak in CC games ranks as the third-longest in league history.
The 2011 season continued Johns Hopkins' recent run of dominance under Margraff, who ranks as the winningest coach in school history with a 147-79-3 (.648) overall record in 22 seasons as the head coach at Homewood. Margraff also became the winningest coach in Centennial Conference history this season and became the first coach in league history to reach 100 conference victories. His all-time record in Centennial Conference games is 101-52-2 (.658).
The recently completed 2011 season also brought to a close the greatest 10-year period in school history. Since 2002, Johns Hopkins has posted an 81-29 (.736) record with seven Centennial Conference titles, five ECAC Bowl appearances, four ECAC championships and three trips to the NCAA Playoffs. Prior to 2002, Johns Hopkins hadn't won a conference title in football since 1969 and the Blue Jays had never appeared in the post-season.
The on-field success of Margraff's Blue Jays is matched only by the team's accomplishments in the classroom. Johns Hopkins led the nation this season with a school-record nine CoSIDA/Capital One Academic All-District selections and the Blue Jays have produced six NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipients and 10 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans since Margraff took over in 1990. Johns Hopkins has produced 52 CoSIDA Academic All-District selections in the last nine years - four more than the other Centennial Conference football programs have combined for over the same period.
Margraff joins Salisbury's Sherman Wood (Region 1), Trinity's (TX) Steve Mohr (Region 3), Mount Union's Larry Kehres (Region 4) and Dubuque's Stan Zweifel (Region 5) as the AFCA Division III Regional Coaches of the Year. Each is now eligible to be selected as the AFCA's Division III National Coach of the Year, which will be presented at the organization's annual convention in San Antonio, TX in January.
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