Football | 6/10/2022 12:59:00 PM

IRVING, Texas - Former Bloomsburg University football greats Danny Hale and Jahri Evans are among the 96 athletes and 33 coaches from the divisional ranks on the 2023 ballot for potential induction into the College Football Hall of Fame as announced by the National Football Foundation (NFF) and the College Hall of Fame.

DANNY HALE
Hale, who retired in February of 2013, spent 20 seasons as head coach at Bloomsburg. He led the Huskies to 11 outright, or shared, Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Eastern Division titles and eight NCAA postseason playoff berths. In his last 13 seasons (2000-2012), Bloomsburg was one of the most successful NCAA Division II programs with a combined record of 121-32 (.791). Hale was honored in April 2012 when the field at the school was named in his honor following a year-long fundraising effort.

At Bloomsburg, Hale posted a record of 173-56-1 (.754) and still holds the school record for most coaching victories. Overall, in 25 years as a head coach, he had a mark of 213-69-1 (.754) and ranked among the top five active coaches in NCAA Division II in winning percentage and victories at his retirement.
 
During the 2000 season, the Huskies went 12-3 and advanced to the NCAA Division II championship game, eventually losing in the title contest. The team reached the finals after rallying from a 19-point deficit against UC-Davis in the national semifinals to post a 58-48 win.
 
Hale was named the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) District I Coach of the Year nine times, the third-highest total in AFCA history. Twice he won the honor in consecutive seasons (2000-2001 and 2005-2006). He was also named the PSAC Eastern Division Coach of the Year ten times, including four straight years from 1994 to 1997 and back-to-back in 2005 and 2006.
 
Among the great players Hale coached at Bloomsburg were Irv Sigler, the 1997 winner of the Harlon Hill Award as the nation's top D-II player; Jamar Brittingham, the second all-time leading rusher in the history of the school and the PSAC, who finished third in the balloting for the Harlon Hill; and Franklyn Quiteh who won the 2013 Harlon Hill Award and is the second all-time leading rusher in NCAA Division II history (and the all-time leader in Bloomsburg and PSAC history).
 
Hale was inducted into the Bloomsburg University Athletics Hall of Fame last October.
 
JAHRI EVANS
Also coached by Hale was Evans, who joins the College Football Hall of Fame ballot for the fifth consecutive year.

Evans took over as a full-time starter on the Huskies' offensive line in 2003, but in 2004, the awards started rolling in for the left tackle. He was an AFCA First Team All-American as a junior while earning Second Team All-American honors from the Associated Press and Don Hansen Football Gazette. Then, as a senior in 2005, Evans helped the Huskies to an average of 284.3 rushing yards per game – the eighth-most in the country. He went on to earn First Team All-American honors from five different organizations – the AFCA, Daktronics, Don Hansen Football Gazette, Associated Press, and D2Football.com. He was also a finalist for the Gene Upshaw Award, which honors the nation's top lineman in Division II in his last two seasons.
 
He earned the Danny Litwhiler Award as Bloomsburg's Male Underclass Athlete of the Year in 2005 and the Robert B. Redman Award as Bloomsburg's Male Senior Athlete of the Year in 2006.
 
Evans was then selected in the fourth round (108th overall) by the New Orleans Saints in the 2006 NFL Draft, becoming the first Huskies player chosen in the draft since 1992. He was selected to six Pro Bowls and was named a First-Team All-Pro in four consecutive seasons from 2009 to 2012. Among Saints' offensive linemen, his six Pro Bowl appearances rank second all-time in team history. He also ranks second all-time in Saints' history with 169 career games. He helped the Saints finish in the top six in the league in total offense in all 11 seasons (2006-2016), including six number-one rankings. He also helped New Orleans finish in the top ten in scoring in nine of his 11 seasons, including number one rankings in 2008 and 2009.

Evans was named to his first Pro Bowl and earned First-Team All-Pro recognition for the first time in 2009 – a season that was capped off with the Saints' victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV. In 2020, he was named to the NFL's All-Decade Team (2010-19).

He was inducted into the Bloomsburg University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2018. He is among the inductees in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame class of 2022.
 
The announcement of the 2023 College Football Hall of Fame Class will be made in early 2023, with specific details on the announcement to be released in the future.