The watch lists that usually follow Justin Evans come with numbers. Rimington Trophy. Preseason All-America. PFF grades that, after Week 1, put the East Orange, N.J., native at the top of the country’s center rankings. This honor is different. Evans was named to the 2026 Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year Watch List, an award that does not care first about pancake blocks or sack totals. It cares about the kind of player a program can point to when it talks about leadership, courage, integrity, and sportsmanship.
This is not a participation trophy. Schools nominate the players. Twenty semifinalists will be named Oct. 13. Three finalists follow on Dec. 14. The winner is announced in the spring of 2027. Last year’s recipient was Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez. The award, presented by Albertsons and Tom Thumb, was built around the example of Witten himself: the longtime Cowboys tight end, 2012 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year, and a man whose name now sits on a college honor that tries to measure character as much as production.
Evans fits the description. He is in his fifth season as a Husker and has started the last two-plus years on the offensive line. He owns 32 career starts and will make his 40th appearance Saturday night against Bowling Green at Memorial Stadium. He was one of Nebraska’s game captains in the opener against Ohio, a night the Huskers piled up 523 yards of total offense and 248 on the ground at nearly six yards a carry. PFF graded him as the nation’s No. 1 center that week.
The résumé behind that start didn't bloom overnight. Evans started all 13 games at center in 2025, helping Emmett Johnson to first-team All-America honors and the Big Ten running back of the year award while Nebraska set a school record for completion percentage. The year before, he started all 12 games at guard. As a redshirt freshman in 2023, he played in all 13 games and started five. The Athletic made him a second-team preseason All-American. He is already on the Rimington watch list. According to PFF, he was not responsible for a single sack in 2025, even as the line as a unit struggled.
Matt Rhule has said Evans received more votes for a single-digit jersey than any offensive lineman he has coached. Evans represented Nebraska at Big Ten Media Days. He talks about the offensive line room the way older Huskers used to talk about it; as something you want to belong to for life, not just a chapter.
Off the field, the list is longer than most programs bother to print. Four-time member of the Tom Osborne and Brook Berringer Citizenship Teams. Three-time Academic All-Big Ten. He has already earned his degree in advertising and public relations. The citizenship teams are not window dressing in Lincoln. They are the school’s way of saying a player showed up for more than Saturday. Evans has shown up four years running.
That combination starter, captain, graduate, community regular is exactly what the Witten award was designed to find. College football hands out hardware for yards, tackles and quarterback ratings every week. Very few trophies ask whether a fifth-year lineman became the kind of teammate a staff can build around and a fan base can recognize as one of their own. Evans is not finished collecting the statistical honors. There will be more snaps, more grades, more chances for the offensive line to look like the unit Nebraska has been trying to become.
The Witten list reminds us that in an era of chasing money over loyalty, players still care and represent the best of the sport on and off the field. Evans arrived as a three-star, redshirted, won scout-team honors, moved from guard to center, but most importantly, he stayed. In a sport that now treats roster spots like rental cars, that is its own kind of leadership. Nebraska nominated him for this award, and for a program that still talks about character, Justin Evans is the perfect example.
