By: Robert Sterling – SeaPRwire – College football awards still turn on single-game dominance. Jordan Castell delivered that in Week 3. Thirteen tackles and an interception against a top-ten opponent moved him to the front of the Lott IMPACT Trophy weekly list. The rest of the defensive field produced solid lines of their own. The selection process mixed insider votes with public ones.
Castell, a defensive back for the University of Kentucky, posted a game-high 13 tackles, three of them solo, plus one interception in the Wildcats’ upset at No. 9 Texas A&M. He arrived at Kentucky after three seasons at Florida. Last year he shared the Gators’ team lead in interceptions and earned a second SEC Fall Academic Honor Roll selection. The Lott IMPACT Trophy, presented by Allied Universal, named him Player of the Week for Week 3 of the 2026 season. Winners are chosen by an internal vote of former players, coaches and board members together with a fan vote on social media. The season-long trophy itself will be awarded on 9 December in Newport Beach, California. Other Week 3 nominees posted strong defensive numbers. Will Echoles, junior defensive tackle at Ole Miss, recorded three tackles for loss including a sack among five total tackles in a 32-24 win over LSU. Martell Hughes, junior linebacker at Arizona State, made 3.5 tackles for loss among 11 total and seven solo stops in a 24-17 victory over Kansas played in London. Sammy Omosigho, senior linebacker at UCLA, finished with 12 tackles, 11 solo, and two sacks in a 52-38 win over Purdue. The trophy itself is given each year to the nation’s top defensive player who also shows the traits Ronnie Lott embodied. IMPACT stands for Integrity, Maturity, Performance, Academics, Community and Tenacity. Allied Universal sponsors the award. The company is described as the world’s leading security and facility services provider, trusted by more than 400 of the Fortune 500, with operations in over 100 countries and territories and annual revenue of approximately 23 billion dollars.
Official announcements list the numbers and the process. The commercial layer is the weekly spotlight that keeps the full-season race visible. Performance on the field supplies the raw data. Academic honor-roll status and the broader IMPACT criteria supply the off-field filter. Fan votes give the public a direct stake. The result is a short list that mixes pure production with character markers. Castell’s transfer and prior interception total at Florida add context to the Kentucky performance. The three other nominees show that multiple positions and conferences produced high-impact defensive plays in the same week.
The market for these weekly honors will keep sorting itself by production first. Teams that generate takeaways and tackle volume in tough environments will keep appearing on the list. The practical check is simple. Watch the next set of defensive box scores. Count the tackles for loss and the interceptions against ranked opponents. Those numbers still decide who gets the next weekly call.
Author bio: Robert Sterling, veteran operator and investor with decades of experience building and scaling businesses across sports marketing, awards programs and talent evaluation markets.