University at Albany’s Greg Gattuso Named Walter Camp 2023 Football Championship Subdivision Coach of the Year
University at Albany’s Greg Gattuso has been selected as Walter Camp’s 2023 Football Championship Subdivision Coach of the Year. This is the first year the Walter Camp Foundation has given this award.
Under Gattuso’s leadership, UAlbany’s 2023 season was the best in program history. The Great Danes finished with an 11-4 overall record, going 7-1 in the highly competitive Colonial Athletic Association (CAA). UAlbany claimed its first-ever conference title, sharing it with Villanova and Richmond. The Great Danes defeated Villanova midway through the season, 31-10 at home, and took down Richmond, 41-13, in the second round of the FCS Playoffs.
UAlbany was awarded the NCAA’s #5 seed in the FCS playoffs and earned a first-round bye. Following its second-round win over Richmond, the Great Danes traveled to #4 Idaho and defeated the Vandals, 30-22. UAlbany’s 2023 season came to an end in the semifinals, falling to top-seeded and eventual national champion, South Dakota State.
Up front, UAlbany led the nation in team sacks – led by Walter Camp FCS All-America defensive end Anton Juncaj (15.0 sacks). Juncaj finished as the nation’s leader in sacks, and finished fifth in the Buck Buchanan Award voting.
Gattuso was also named CAA Coach of the Year, FCS Football Central Coach of the Year and ECAC Coach of the Year in 2023. Gattuso has been the head coach at UAlbany for 10 seasons, and previously was the head coach at Duquesne University (97-32 record, 12 years) and served as an assistant coach at Maryland and his alma mater Penn State, where he played for the Nittany Lions and graduated in 1983.
Gattuso will be honored along with FCS Player of the Year Jaden Shirden (Monmouth, along with the members of the 2023 Walter Camp FBS All-America Team, Player of Year Jayden Daniels (LSU), Coach of Year Kalen DeBoer (Washington… now at Alabama) and Connecticut Players of the Year Tyler Van Dyke and Justin Barron at the Foundation’s 57th National Awards Gala on Saturday, March 16 in New Haven. National Awards Gala tickets are $350 and available at https://waltercamp.org/product/awards-dinner/
Walter Camp, “The Father of American football,” first selected an All-America team in 1889. Camp – a former Yale University athlete and football coach – is also credited with developing play from scrimmage, set plays, the numerical assessment of goals and tries and the restriction of play to eleven men per side. The Walter Camp Football Foundation – a New Haven-based all-volunteer group – was founded in 1967 to perpetuate the ideals of Camp and to continue the tradition of selecting annually an All-America team. Visit www.waltercamp.org for more information.
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