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ESPN College Football Awards

Source: R/espn_cfb_catalog.R
espn_cfb_awards.Rd

Get ESPN's college football awards for a season – the Heisman, position and player-of-the-year honors, and the athlete (and team) that won each.

Usage

espn_cfb_awards(year = NULL, team_detail = TRUE)

Arguments

year

(Integer required): Season, 4 digit format (YYYY).

team_detail

(Logical): when TRUE (default), the ESPN team catalog (espn_cfb_teams()) is fetched once and friendly team fields are joined in next to the team_id column. The sibling columns team_name, team_abbreviation, team_location, team_display_name, team_short_display_name, team_nickname, team_color, team_alternate_color, team_logo_href, team_logo_dark_href are inserted immediately after team_id. A catalog failure degrades to NA rather than erroring the wrapper. Set FALSE to skip the catalog fetch and the join, reproducing the prior output exactly.

Value

A data frame with one row per award-winner:

col_nametypesdescription
seasonintegerSeason (4-digit year).
award_idcharacterESPN award id.
namecharacterAward name (e.g. Heisman Trophy).
descriptioncharacterESPN's description of the award.
athlete_idcharacterESPN id of the winning athlete (parsed from athlete_ref); NA if none.
team_idcharacterESPN id of the winner's team (parsed from team_ref); NA if none.
team_namecharacterTeam nickname; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_abbreviationcharacterTeam abbreviation; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_locationcharacterTeam location / school name; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_display_namecharacterFull team display name; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_short_display_namecharacterShort team display name; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_nicknamecharacterTeam nickname label; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_colorcharacterPrimary team color; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_alternate_colorcharacterAlternate team color; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_logo_hrefcharacterDefault team logo URL; team_detail = TRUE only.
team_logo_dark_hrefcharacterDark-variant team logo URL; team_detail = TRUE only.
award_refcharacter$ref URL to the award resource.
athlete_refcharacter$ref URL to the winning athlete resource (may be NA).
team_refcharacter$ref URL to the winner's team resource (may be NA).

Details

Wraps the ESPN core-v2 endpoint sports.core.api.espn.com/v2/sports/football/leagues/college-football/seasons/{year}/awards. The index returns one $ref per award (~32); this wrapper dereferences each and returns one row per (award x winner). Most awards have a single winner, so the table is roughly one row per award. Winners are returned as ESPN athlete ids (and team ids) only – join to an athlete source for names. An award with no winner recorded yet still contributes one row with athlete_id/team_id left NA.

See also

Other ESPN CFB Functions: espn_cfb_award(), espn_cfb_clear_cache(), espn_cfb_coach(), espn_cfb_coach_record(), espn_cfb_coaches(), espn_cfb_franchise(), espn_cfb_franchises(), espn_cfb_futures(), espn_cfb_game_broadcasts(), espn_cfb_game_drive_plays(), espn_cfb_game_drives(), espn_cfb_game_leaders(), espn_cfb_game_odds(), espn_cfb_game_pbp(), espn_cfb_game_play(), espn_cfb_game_player_box(), espn_cfb_game_player_statistics(), espn_cfb_game_powerindex(), espn_cfb_game_predictor(), espn_cfb_game_probabilities(), espn_cfb_game_situation(), espn_cfb_game_status(), espn_cfb_game_team_leaders(), espn_cfb_game_team_linescores(), espn_cfb_game_team_records(), espn_cfb_game_team_roster(), espn_cfb_game_team_statistics(), espn_cfb_game_teams(), espn_cfb_groups(), espn_cfb_pbp_v2(), espn_cfb_player(), espn_cfb_player_career_stats(), espn_cfb_player_eventlog(), espn_cfb_player_gamelog(), espn_cfb_player_overview(), espn_cfb_player_seasons(), espn_cfb_player_splits(), espn_cfb_player_stats_v3(), espn_cfb_players(), espn_cfb_position(), espn_cfb_positions(), espn_cfb_powerindex(), espn_cfb_qbr(), espn_cfb_rankings(), espn_cfb_recruits(), espn_cfb_season_info(), espn_cfb_season_types(), espn_cfb_season_weeks(), espn_cfb_seasons(), espn_cfb_standings(), espn_cfb_team(), espn_cfb_team_ats(), espn_cfb_team_awards(), espn_cfb_team_coaches(), espn_cfb_team_events(), espn_cfb_team_leaders(), espn_cfb_team_powerindex(), espn_cfb_team_ranks(), espn_cfb_team_record(), espn_cfb_team_roster(), espn_cfb_team_schedule(), espn_cfb_teams(), espn_cfb_unnest_plays(), espn_cfb_venue(), espn_cfb_venues(), espn_cfb_week_rankings()

Examples

# \donttest{
  try(espn_cfb_awards(year = 2024))
#> ── Awards data from ESPN ───────────────────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:55:32 UTC
#> # A tibble: 34 × 19
#>    season award_id name                 description athlete_id team_id team_name
#>     <int> <chr>    <chr>                <chr>       <chr>      <chr>   <chr>    
#>  1   2024 1        Buck Buchanan Award  I-AA Defen… 5085355    2110    Bears    
#>  2   2024 2        Chuck Bednarik Award Defensive … 4685415    38      Buffaloes
#>  3   2024 3        Davey O'Brien Award  National Q… 4688380    2390    Hurrican…
#>  4   2024 4        Dick Butkus Award    Outstandin… 4685597    61      Bulldogs 
#>  5   2024 5        Doak Walker Award    National R… 4890973    68      Broncos  
#>  6   2024 6        Fred Biletnikoff Aw… Outstandin… 4685415    38      Buffaloes
#>  7   2024 7        Gagliardi Trophy     NCAA Divis… 4911584    3071    Cardinals
#>  8   2024 8        Harlon Hill Trophy   NCAA Divis… 4572712    2118    Mules    
#>  9   2024 9        Heisman Memorial Tr… Outstandin… 4685415    38      Buffaloes
#> 10   2024 10       Jim Thorpe Award     Outstandin… 4430925    251     Longhorns
#> # ℹ 24 more rows
#> # ℹ 12 more variables: team_abbreviation <chr>, team_location <chr>,
#> #   team_display_name <chr>, team_short_display_name <chr>,
#> #   team_nickname <chr>, team_color <chr>, team_alternate_color <chr>,
#> #   team_logo_href <chr>, team_logo_dark_href <chr>, award_ref <chr>,
#> #   athlete_ref <chr>, team_ref <chr>
  try(espn_cfb_awards(year = 2024, team_detail = FALSE))
#> ── Awards data from ESPN ───────────────────────────────────── cfbfastR 2.3.0 ──
#> ℹ Data updated: 2026-06-09 07:55:33 UTC
#> # A tibble: 34 × 9
#>    season award_id name     description athlete_id team_id award_ref athlete_ref
#>     <int> <chr>    <chr>    <chr>       <chr>      <chr>   <chr>     <chr>      
#>  1   2024 1        Buck Bu… I-AA Defen… 5085355    2110    http://s… http://spo…
#>  2   2024 2        Chuck B… Defensive … 4685415    38      http://s… http://spo…
#>  3   2024 3        Davey O… National Q… 4688380    2390    http://s… http://spo…
#>  4   2024 4        Dick Bu… Outstandin… 4685597    61      http://s… http://spo…
#>  5   2024 5        Doak Wa… National R… 4890973    68      http://s… http://spo…
#>  6   2024 6        Fred Bi… Outstandin… 4685415    38      http://s… http://spo…
#>  7   2024 7        Gagliar… NCAA Divis… 4911584    3071    http://s… http://spo…
#>  8   2024 8        Harlon … NCAA Divis… 4572712    2118    http://s… http://spo…
#>  9   2024 9        Heisman… Outstandin… 4685415    38      http://s… http://spo…
#> 10   2024 10       Jim Tho… Outstandin… 4430925    251     http://s… http://spo…
#> # ℹ 24 more rows
#> # ℹ 1 more variable: team_ref <chr>
# }