The honors keep coming for Mount Carmel’s Jordan Lynch.
The five-time state champion football coach was feted for something he accomplished in 2025 and then honored for something he acccomplished in the 2010s as a college football player.
Lynch won the National Coach of the Year Award, sponsored by the Navy All-American Bowl, on Jan. 9 for helping the Caravan win the IHSA Class 8A state championship.
Five days later, he was named to the 2026 class of the National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame, recognizing his accomplishments when he was a quarterback at Northern Illinois.
Lynch called the college football award “surreal” in a statement.
“To know that all the players in the history of college football that just over 1,000 have been selected and to be just the second NIU player named, it’s obviously a great honor,” Lynch said. “To have all the hard work, sacrifice and dedication, the time, the commitment, by not just me but my parents, family, loved ones, teammates, coaches and everyone at NIU recognized is awesome.”
The Mount Carmel graduate had a banner year in 2013 when he helped lead the Huskies to an Orange Bowl appearance and finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting.
George Bork, who played quarterback at NIU from 1960-63, was the only other Huskie player to make it to the hall in 1999. Tom Beck (1959-61) was inducted as a coach in 2004.
“While we at NIU have known for a long time that what Jordan Lynch accomplished during his time as a Huskie placed him among the best to ever play the game, (the) announcement emphatically makes that statement to the entire nation,” NIU athletic director Sean Frazier said in a statement.
Lynch will be inducted on Dec. 8 in Las Vegas.
In his senior season, Lynch threw for 2,892 yards with 24 touchdowns and added 1,920 rushing yards with 23 touchdowns. He was a finalist for the Heisman, the Walter Camp Player of the Year, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award and the Manning Quarterback Award.
Then-NIU coach Jerry Kill helped recruit Lynch to NIU.
“Jordan Lynch is one of the best players and best young men that I’ve been associated with in all my years in college football,” Kill said in a statement. “He was a very tough — mentally and physically — kid and he just knew how to win. He was a great leader, and he was a great player who his team loved playing for and with.”
As for the national coach of the year award, Lynch helped guide the Caravan to a 14-0 record and its fourth straight state title. The first three came in Class 7A and the team was bumped up a class in 2025 and win the 8A crowd with a 20-3 victory over Oswego on Dec. 3.