LSU's Leonard Fournette and Stanford's Christian McCaffrey headline the 2016 Doak Walker Award watch list, which was released on Thursday. The Doak Walker Award is presented to the nation's top running back in college football.
Fournette and McCaffrey were each finalists for the award last season, when Alabama's Derrick Henry -- the Heisman Trophy winner and Tennessee Titanssecond-round draft pick -- won the award.
Fournette led all FBS running backs with 162.8 yards rushing per game in 2015. McCaffrey was a breakthrough player during his sophomore season in 2015, when he broke Barry Sanders' NCAA record for all-purpose yards. McCaffrey finished with 3,864 all-purpose yards, eclipsing Sanders' 3,250 from 1988.
The Walker Award is named after former SMU and Detroit Lions running back Doak Walker, who was the 1948 Heisman Trophy winner, and member of both the college football and Pro Football Hall of Fames.
The winner of the Doak Walker Award will be named on Dec. 8.
Watch lists for other awards will be released this month as follows:
July 5: Bednarik Award / Maxwell Award
July 6: Mackey Award / Rimington Trophy
July 7: Lou Groza Award / Ray Guy Award
July 8: Bronko Nagurski Trophy / Outland Trophy
July 11: Jim Thorpe Award
July 12: Butkus Award
July 13: Biletnikoff Award / Wuerffel Trophy
July 14: Davey O'Brien Award / Doak Walker Award
July 15: Walter Camp Award / Paul Hornung Award
2016 Doak Walker Award watch list
Josh Adams, Notre Dame
Saquon Barkley, Penn State
Jamauri Bogan, Western Michigan
Joel Bouagnon, Northern Illinois
Matt Breida, Georgia Southern
Shannon Brooks, Minnesota
Algernon Brown, BYU
James Butler, Nevada
Nick Chubb, Georgia
Jordan Chunn, Troy
Corey Clement, Wisconsin
James Conner, Pittsburgh
Dalvin Cook, Florida State
Marcus Cox, Appalachian State
LeShun Daniels, Jr., Iowa
Justin Davis, USC
Matthew Dayes, North Carolina State
Jela Duncan, Duke
D'Andre Ferby, Western Kentucky
Tarean Folston, Notre Dame
D'Onta Foreman, Texas
Leonard Fournette, LSU
Jarvion Franklin, Western Michigan
Royce Freeman, Oregon
Wayne Gallman, Clemson
Myles Gaskin, Washington
Damien Harris, Alabama
Paul Harris, Hawaii
Kyle Hicks, TCU
Brian Hill, Wyoming
Dontrell Hilliard, Tulane
Brandon Holloway, Mississippi State
Elijah Hood, North Carolina
Jalen Hurd, Tennessee
Johnny Jefferson, Baylor
Aaron Jones, UTEP
Charles Jones, Kansas State
Markell Jones, Purdue
Ronald Jones II, USC
Xavier Jones, SMU
Alvin Kamara, Tennessee
Ray Lawry, Old Dominion
Phillip Lindsay, Colorado
Shock Linwood, Baylor
Marlon Mack, South Florida
Devante Mays, Utah State
Christian McCaffrey, Stanford
Elijah McGuire, Louisiana-Lafayette
Sony Michel, Georgia
Taquan Mizzell, Virginia
Khalfani Muhammad, California
Terrell Newby, Nebraska
Arkeel Newsome, Connecticut
Jacobi Owens, Air Force
Samaje Perine, Oklahoma
Donnel Pumphrey, San Diego State
Devine Redding, Indiana
Larry Rose III, New Mexico State
Bo Scarbrough, Alabama
De'Veon Smith, Michigan
Justin Stockton, Texas Tech
Shaq Vann, Eastern Michigan
Ke'Shawn Vaughn, Illinois
Anthony Wales, Western Kentucky
Kody Walker, Arkansas
Warren Wand, Arkansas State
Chris Warren III, Texas
Mike Warren, Iowa State
Tre Watson, California
Ralph Webb, Vanderbilt
David Williams, South Carolina
Jamaal Williams, BYU
Rawleigh Williams III, Arkansas
Stanley Williams, Kentucky
Nick Wilson, Arizona
Shaun Wilson, Duke
Marquis Young, Massachusetts
Follow Jim Reineking on Twitter @jimreineking.
