Official National Football Foundation Release with Complete 2026 Induction Class
IRVING, TX – Jim Margraff '82, who built the Johns Hopkins football program from the depths of Division III into one of the most successful and respected in the nation, has been elected to the College Football Hall of Fame it was announced today by the National Football Foundation (NFF) and College Hall of Fame. The official announcement was made on ESPN2 on College Football Live.
Margraff, who joins former teammate Bill Stromberg '82 as Johns Hopkins' only College Football Hall of Famers, is a member of a 2026 College Football Hall of Fame Class that consists of 18 players and four coaches. Among the 22 individuals selected, Margraff is the only representative from a Division III institution.
Margraff is being inducted posthumously after passing away on January 2, 2019 just weeks after guiding his Blue Jays to the NCAA Semfinals for the first time in program history.
The 2026 NFF College Football Hall of Fame Class will officially be inducted during the 68th NFF Annual Awards Dinner Presented by Las Vegas on December 8, 2026, at the Bellagio Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
The inductees will also be recognized at their respective collegiate institutions with NFF Hall of Fame On-Campus Salutes, presented by Fidelity Investments, during the fall. Their accomplishments will be forever immortalized at the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta. Each inductee will receive a custom ring created by Jostens, the official and exclusive supplier of NFF rings.
Margraff took over as the Johns Hopkins head coach in 1990 and quickly transformed the program. Inheriting a team that had posted consecutive 1-9 records in the two seasons prior to his arrival and had won just nine total games from 1986-1989, he guided his first team in 1990 to a 5-4-1 record and never looked back.
Over a 29-year period from 1990-2018, Margraff's Blue Jays compiled a record of 221-89-3. He became the winningest coach in Johns Hopkins and Centennial Conference history and also became the winningest college football coach in Maryland state history his Blue Jays handed him career win number 175 with a 42-14 win at Ursinus on November 1, 2014. Among active Division III head coaches, he ranked third in career wins at the conclusion of the 2018 season.
Margraff led Johns Hopkins to 14 Centennial Conference titles, 10 appearances in the NCAA Playoffs and five ECAC Bowl Games. The 14 Centennial titles and 10 NCAA appearances both rank as the most by a head coach in Centennial Conference history.
Prior to Margraff's arrival, Johns Hopkins had never won more than seven games in a season. He reset that standard when his 2002 team posted a 9-2 record, grabbed a share of the first of those record 14 Centennial titles and topped Frostburg, 24-21, in the ECAC Southwest Bowl in the the first post-season game in program history.
The 2002 season proved to be the springboard to Margraff establishing Johns Hopkins has a perennial player on the national level and the dominant force in the Centennial Conference. From 2002-2018 – a span of 17 seasons – his Blue Jays won each of those 14 Centennial titles, including a remarkable 10 straight from 2009-2018, made all 10 of his NCAA Playoff appearances and won nine or more games 12 times. After having never won more than seven games in a season prior to 2002, Johns Hopkins averaged 9.1 wins per year during Margraff's final 17 seasons.
During that run from 2009-2018, his final 10 seasons, the Blue Jays posted a remarkable record of 102-17, including an 83-6 mark in the Centennial Conference. Further, from 2013-16 the Blue Jays went 40-0 in regular season games. Johns Hopkins advanced to the NCAA Semifinals in 2018, the quarterfinals in 2009 and the second round of the NCAAs in 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016.
With success came recognition for Margraff and his players. He was named the AFCA and D3football.com National Coach of the Year in 2018 and boasted 12 overall Coach of the Year citations as he was the D3football.com South Region Coach of the Year twice (2011, 2018), the AFCA Regional Coach of the Year four times (2011, 2014, 2016, 2018) and the Centennial Conference Coach of the Year four times (2011, 2012, 2014, 2016).
Margraff also coached 21 players who earned a total of 41 All-America selections; among those were eight players who combined to earn First Team All-America honors 13 times.
Success under Margraff was not limited to the playing fiels as his Blue Jays also excelled in the classroom. From the selection of Michael House (1st Team) and Stu Markley (2nd Team) in 1993, a remarkable 31 of his players earned CoSIDA Academic All-America honors, including 14 who grabbed first team honors and 17 who were second team selections. From 2011-18, a total of 21 Johns Hopkins football players were selected as Academic All-Americans, the most by any team in the nation at any level of college football during that period.
Additional national recognition for Margraff, his players and program including the selection of current Maryland Governor Wes Moore as a Rhodes Scholar in 2000, John Arena as the Division III Academic Academic All-American of the Year in 2013, seven players earning prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships and three being selected to the AFCA Good Works Team. Arena was also a finalist for the Campbell Trophy, often referred to as the Academic Heisman, as a member of the 2013 NFF Scholar-Athlete Class. As such, he earned an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship.