List of Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year

"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 based on excellence in both classroom achievement and athletic competition performance by the College Sports Communicators (CSC, known before the 2022–23 school year as College Sports Information Directors of America, or CoSIDA), the Academic All-America program recognizes combined athletic and academic 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.^[1] 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.^[2] 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.^[3]

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 schools. 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 and all remaining sanctioned men's and women's sports as at-large teams) had one Academic All-American of the Year for each of its divisions. 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.^[4] The most recent football player to win the all-sports honor is John Matocha of the Colorado School of Mines, who received the Division II awards for the 2022–23 academic year.^[5][a]

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.^[6] 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.^[1] However, the football selection process has incorporated Canada into the districts for the other four sets.^[2]

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