2017 CoSIDA Academic All-America® Football Teams:
College Division Teams: PDF | doc
NCAA Division III Teams: PDF | doc
NCAA Division II Teams: PDF | doc
NCAA Division I Teams: PDF | doc
• Check out the all new AcademicAllAmerica.com
Marlon Walls of Stephen F. Austin Headlines CoSIDA Academic All-America® NCAA Division I Football Teams
Marlon Walls
AUSTIN, Texas – Senior defensive back Marlon Walls of Stephen F. Austin State University headlines the 2017 CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division I Football Team, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). Walls has been selected as the recipient of the Academic All-America® of the Year award for Division I football.
An engineering physics major with a perfect 4.0 GPA, Walls is on pace to graduate December 16 after only three and a half years of study at Stephen F. Austin. He played in all 11 games, starting 10 times, for the Lumberjacks this season, recording 60 tackles, including 31 solo stops and two tackles for loss. He also registered a career-high 11 tackles against nationally-ranked Nicholls on Nov. 11.
A two-time CoSIDA first-team Academic All-America® selection (the first Lumberjack football player to earn that honor), Walls is the reigning Southland Conference Football Student-Athlete of the Year and was a finalist for the 2017 William V. Campbell Trophy, as well as a National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete selection. A native of Pearland, Texas, Walls is a two-time nominee for both the Allstate/American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Good Works Team and the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) Doris Robinson Scholar-Athlete Award. He also earned a spot on the 2016 FCS Athletic Directors Association Academic All-Star Team, and is a two-time selection to the Southland Conference All-Academic Team.
Following his graduation, Walls will continue work at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, having completed an internship at the facility last summer. He will then begin work on his graduate degree in mechanical engineering next fall.
No less than 33 of the 50 members of the 2017 CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division I Football Team have at least a 3.90 G.P.A., with 14 student-athletes maintaining a perfect 4.00 GPA as either undergraduate or graduate students. The 25 members of the first team have an average GPA of 3.94.
Along with Walls, the Academic All-America® Division I Football Team has eight repeat performers – Tucker Yinger (University of Dayton), Mason Hampton (Boise State University), Jacob Judd (Western Illinois University), Brad Lundblade (Oklahoma State University), Seth Hope (Cornell University), David Leisring (University of Dayton), Max Michaels (University of San Diego) and Joseph Davidson (Bowling Green State University) - from last year’s CoSIDA Academic All-America® teams.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Jeff Schwartz, North Dakota State University | Academic All-America® Co-Director for Publicity
Jeff.Schwartz@ndsu.edu | (701) 231-8332
Chris Masters, Big Ten Conference | Academic All-America® Coordinator of Publicity
cmasters@bigten.org | (847) 696-1010, ext. 146