Miami's Mark Richt voted ACC Coach of the Year; BC's AJ Dillon, Virginia's Brenton Nelson top rookies
Miami's Mark Richt, Boston College's AJ Dillon and Virginia's Brenton Nelson earned ACC awards all in runaway votes.
Richt was announced Tuesday as Coach of the Year, while Dillon earned Rookie of the Year and Offensive Rookie of the Year and Nelson was named the top defensive rookie.
Richt, earned 41 of the votes from a panel of 45 media members and the league's 14 coaches in punching the Hurricanes' first trip to the ACC Championship Game and keeping them in the mix as a College Football Playoff contender.
Clemson's Dabo Swinney followed Richt with 10 votes, followed by Boston College's Steve Addazio with five, Virginia's Bronco Mendenhall with two, while Wake Forest's Dave Clawson earned a single vote.
Miami, which will play Clemson on Saturday in Charlotte in the ACC title game, has 10 wins for the first time sine 2003 and its seven conference wins are the most since it joined the league in '04.
Richt is the first Miami coach to win the ACC Coach of the Year honors.
Dillon claimed 47 of the ROY votes to beat Wake Forest's Greg Dortch, who has six votes. Clemson's Travis Etienne earned four and Virginia Tech's Josh Jackson received a pair of votes.
Those players earned the same votes in the Offensive ROY race.
Dillon, the second freshman in league history with two 200-yard games, is sitting on 1,432 yards heading into the Eagles' bowl game.
Nelson, who has started all 12 games for the bowl-bound Cavaliers, has 58 tackles, including 31 solo stops. He also has four interceptions on the year six sit pass-breakups and two tackles for loss.
He beat out Clemson's A.J. Terrell (nine votes), Miami's Jonathan Garvin (seven), Syracuse's Dorian Etheridge (seven), Miami's Amari Carter (four), Pitt's Rashad Weaver (two) and North Carolina's Tomon Fox (one).
