Seven University of Louisville football players were named to the 2026 National Football Foundation (NFF) Hampshire Honor Society, according to an April 8 announcement. The honorees include wide receiver Chris Bell, long snapper Shai Kochav, defensive tackle Rene Konga, tight end Nate Kurisky, quarterback Miller Moss, center Pete Nygra, and a linebacker.
The recognition comes as the Hampshire Honor Society celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The society acknowledged its largest class in history in 2026, with all 17 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) football-playing member institutions represented among the honorees.
The ACC has maintained a strong tradition of academic achievement among its student-athletes. Over the two decades since the program began in 2007, the ACC ranks third among all Football Bowl Subdivision conferences for total honorees. Duke University leads with 95 selections over that period; California has had 90 and Virginia has had 77—each ranking among the top ten nationally for all-time selections. Southern Methodist University is noted as one of only twenty-three programs nationwide to have at least one honoree every year since the society’s inception.
For this year’s class, Virginia led ACC schools with nineteen selections. Stanford followed with eleven and Duke with ten. Eleven ACC programs placed seven or more student-athletes on this year’s list.
To qualify for induction into the NFF Hampshire Honor Society, college football players must maintain a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.2 throughout their collegiate careers and be either graduating seniors or graduate transfers who competed during their final season of eligibility in 2025 while serving as starters or significant contributors on their teams.
This year’s class includes a record-setting total of 2,596 players from three hundred sixty-five colleges and universities across the country. Since its establishment in 2007, more than twenty-three thousand five hundred student-athletes from nearly seven hundred schools have been recognized by the program.
