Navy head football coach Ken Niumatalolo is one 22 semifinalists for the 2019 George Munger Collegiate Coach of the Year award presented by the Maxwell Club.
 
Cincinnati's Luke Fickell, Mike Norvell of Memphis and Sonny Dykes of SMU are also among the semifinalists from the American Athletic Conference.
 
Niumatalolo has led Navy to a 7-2 season and a 5-1 mark in the AAC. Navy's six game improvement from 2018 is the second-biggest improvement in the country so far in 2019. 
 
Semifinalist voting will begin on Thursday Nov. 21^st and close on Sunday, Dec. 8th. The finalist round will include the top three coaches from the semifinalist voting. Finalist voting will open Dec. 9th and run until Dec. 27th. The winner will be announced Dec. 29th.
 
The formal presentation of the George Munger Collegiate Coach of the Year Award will take place at the Maxwell Football Club's National Awards Gala on Friday, March 6 at the Tropicana Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
 
Eligible voters include Maxwell Football Club members, NCAA Head Football Coaches, Sports Information Directors and selected national media.
 
Senior quarterback Malcolm Perry has accepted an invitation to play in the East-West Shrine Bowl on Jan. 18 in St. Petersburg, Fla.  The game will be televised by the NFL Network.
 
Perry is the 31^st Navy player to play in the game and the first since D.J. Palmore in 2017.
 
Perry has rushed for 1,159 yards and 16 touchdowns in 2019, while throwing for 758 yards and five touchdowns.  His 16 rushing touchdowns are the fifth most in the country, while his 128.8 rushing yards per game is also fifth. 
 
Perry's 3,501 career rushing yards stands third all-time in Navy history, while his 35 career rushing touchdowns is the fifth most in school history. 
 
In 17 career starts at quarterback, Perry has rushed for 2,389 yards on 366 carries and 29 touchdowns. The Mids are 11-6 in those 17 starts.
 
Long snapper Michael Pifer has been named the top long snapper in the country by Special Teams U. Pifer is also a candidate for the Mannelly Award, which is also awarded to the top long snapper in the country.  Pifer has been Navy's long snapper on all kicks in each of the last two years.
 
The Navy offensive line was named Honorable Mention honorees for the Joe Moore Award.  The Mids were not one of the 10 semifinalists despite leading the nation in rushing (349.3 yards per game) and leading the nation in the most rushing plays of 10 yards or more (97).
 
The Navy ground game is averaging 5.88 yards per carry, which is fifth best in the country, and have totaled 31 rushing plays of 20 yards or more, which is the fourth best in the country.
 
Navy (7-2) plays host to No. 21 / No. 25 SMU (9-1) on Saturday in a huge American Athletic Conference contest. Kickoff is set for 3:30 PM and standing room only tickets are available by calling 1-800-US4-NAVY or by logging on to navysports.com(.)