The annually-awarded Football Academic All-America Team Member of the Year is the most outstanding singular college football athlete selected for the Academic All-America Teams in a given year. Selected by the College Sports Communicators (formerly known as College Sports Information Directors of America, or CoSIDA), the Academic All-America program recognizes combined athletic performance and academic achievement excellence of the nation's top student-athletes.

Formerly, an Academic All-District team of honorees based on CSC member nominations and voting was chosen in each of eight geographic districts across the United States and Canada. Academic All-District and All-America teams were chosen separately for various levels of collegiate athletic competition (known as divisions). For each division, a set of eight districts was delineated. For the NCAA Division I-level teams for the seasons up to the 2021–22 academic year, districts were as follows: – District 1 (CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI, VT), District 2 (DC, DE, KY, MD, NJ, PA, WV), District 3 (NC, TN, VA), District 4 (AL, FL, GA, PR, SC), District 5 (IL, IN, MI, OH), District 6 (AR, IA, LA, MN, MO, MS, MT, ND, SD, WI, WY), – District 7 (CO, ID, KS, NE, NM, NV, OK, TX), District 8 (AK, AZ, CA, HI, OR, UT, WA, Canada). Other divisions use other district groupings. Formerly, only first team All-District honorees made the All-America team ballots. In 2022, the All-District selection process was eliminated, with all eligible nominees being included on the Academic All-America final ballot. In addition, tennis and swimming & diving were added as separate sports from the at-large set of sports. Also, the qualifying grade point average was raised from 3.3 to 3.5.

From 1996 to 2010, this team selection process was held separately for the College and University Divisions. The University Division Academic All-America and Academic All-District teams included eligible participants from National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I member schools, while the College Division team included scholar-athletes from all of the following: NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), Canadian universities and colleges and two-year colleges. From each team one winner for each sport was chosen from both the College and University Divisions for all twelve Academic All-America teams including football to be the team member of the year. Thus, all twelve Academic All-American teams (men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's track & field/cross country, men's baseball, women's softball, men's football, women's volleyball, men's and women's swimming & diving, men's and women's tennis and all remaining sanctioned men's and women's sports as at-large teams) had one Academic All-American of the Year per division. One of these twelve sport-by-sport Academic All-Americans of the year is selected as the Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for each division. The most recent football player to win the all-sports honor is Brayden Long of Slippery Rock University, who received the Division II award for the 2024–25 academic year.

In 2011, the Academic All-America program was expanded from two to four divisions. NCAA Divisions II and III were separated into their own divisions, while the College Division was then restricted to non-NCAA institutions. Most recently, effective with the 2018–19 school year, the College Division was split, with NAIA members now receiving their own set of awards, while in some sports two-year college, Canadian institutions and any other institution not affiliated with the NCAA or NAIA also get a set of rewards under the College Division. However, the football selection process has incorporated Canada into the districts for the other four sets.

History

Although Nebraska Cornhuskers football has the most Football Academic All-America selections, only Rob Zatechka has earned this award for Nebraska.

Several of the Football Academic All-America of the Year winners have gone on to win the overall Academic All-America of the Year. For Division I, Tommy Vardell (1991), Jim Hansen (1992), Rob Zatechka (1994), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Peyton Manning (1997), Matt Stinchcomb (1998), Chad Pennington (1999), Alex Smith (2004), Barrett Jones (2012), Carson Wentz (2015), Justin Herbert (2019), and Mac Jones (2020–21) all earned the overall award. Before the split, College Division selectees Chris Palmer (1995), T.J. Hess (2001), Josh Lamberson (2005) and Greg Micheli (2008) were overall winners. Since the split, Division II honorees Jason Vander Laan (2015), John Matocha (2022), and Brayden Long (2024), as well as Division III winner Owen Grover (2023), have won the overall award. No NAIA honoree has won the all-sports award since the split.

Several have been repeat winners of this award.Justin Herbert is the most recent repeat Division I winner. He was preceded by Tim Tebow and Danny Wuerffel. Before the College Division was divided, its repeat winners included David Gubbrud, Chris Hatcher and Corte McGuffey. Since the split, Ugdam Goya has repeated in Division III and Jake Snodgrass and Cameron Dukes have repeated in the NAIA.

Tables of winners

+KeyIndicates winners of the all-sports Academic All-America award.

Two-division era (1987–2010)

+Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year (1987–2010) Year University Division College Division Winner School Winner School 1987 Texas A&M Denison 1988 Dartmouth Augustana (SD) 1989 Army Augustana (SD) 1990 Oregon Carnegie Mellon 1991 Stanford Arkansas Tech 1992 Colorado 1993 Notre Dame Valdosta State 1994Nebraska Valdosta State 1995 Florida Saint John's (MN) 1996 Florida 1997 Tennessee 1998 Georgia Northern Colorado 1999 Marshall Northern Colorado 2000 Purdue 2001 Montana State Widener 2002 Texas Tech 2003 Ohio State Emporia State 2004 Utah Eastern New Mexico 2005 Brown Northwest Missouri State 2006 Penn State Pittsburg State 2007 Dayton Chadron State 2008 Florida Mount Union 2009 Florida 2010 Alabama Minnesota–Duluth

Four-division era (2011–present) +Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year (2011–present) Year Division I Division II Division III College/NAIA Winner School Winner School Winner School Winner School 2011 Stanford Colorado Mines DubuqueMcPherson 2012 Alabama West Texas A&M Mount Union McPherson 2013 Oklahoma Northwest Missouri State Johns Hopkins 2014 South Dakota State Henderson State Illinois College 2015 North Dakota State Ferris State Mount Union Peru State 2016 Stanford Northwest Missouri State Olivet Baker 2017 Stephen F. Austin Arkansas Tech Peru State 2018 Oregon Augustana (SD) Morningside 2019 Oregon UW–Whitewater Waldorf 2020–21 Alabama Lindsey Wilson 2021 Iowa State Slippery Rock Grove City 2022 Kentucky Colorado Mines 2023 Washington Colorado Mines Wartburg Keiser 2024 Colorado Slippery Rock Saint John's (MN) Taylor 2025 Navy Minnesota State–Moorhead DePauw Evangel

Schools with multiple awards School Awards Florida 4 4Alabama 3Colorado Mines 3Augustana (SD) 3 3 Mount Union 3 Northwest Missouri State 3 Stanford 3Arkansas Tech 2Colorado 2 2 McPherson 2Oregon 3 Peru State 2Saint John's (MN) 2Slippery Rock 2 2Valdosta State 2 Footnotes

Notes

References

External links Academic All-America information page All-time list