DENVERÂ The Colorado Chapter of the National Football Foundation (CC/NFF) has released its 2023 Academic All-Colorado Scholar Teams with 21 Mountaineers earning first team honors and 10 more on the Honorable Mention list.
First-team honorees from Western Colorado begin with
Ricky Freymond, a CC/NFF Scholar-Athlete of the Year finalist. Freymond posts a 3.56 grade-point average as a business administration major, and is also a first-team Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference All-Academic Team selection.
Joining Freymond on the Scholar-Athlete first team are teammates:
- Aidan Achtziger (3.40 GPA, computer science)
- DJ Allen Jr. (3.46, business administration)
- Jaden Armbrust (3.42, business administration)
- Cameron Colangelo (3.32, physics)
- Kyle Gaster (3.75, accounting)
- Zac Heaton (3.55, business administration)
- Ian Loomis (3.50, business administration)
- Jacob Naibauer (3.71, business administration)
- Drew Nash (3.72, ecosystem science)
- Taylor Nichols (3.33, business administration)
- Blake Nieslanik (3.78, business administration)
- Jace Perez (3.57, business administration)
- Cole Riters (3.41, business administration)
- Trevor Riters (3,75, economics)
- Nate Scharnhorst (3.88, business administration)
- Corey Scranton (3.69, exercise & sport science)
- Cy Shope (3.31, business administration)
- Chance Wiening (3.89, ecosystem science)
- Sage Yazzie (3.71, psychology)
- Jaydon Young (3.67, sociology)
The list of Mountaineers earning Honorable Mention are:
- Stevie Byron (3.19, sociology)
- Dylan Cardenas (3.03, psychology)
- Ryan Downard (3.22, physics)
- Lucas Hill (3.10, exercise & sport science)
- Bryce Lucas (3.01, exercise & sport science)
- Caden Measner (3.06, business administration)
- Daniel Parsek (3.28, exercise & sport science)
- Zayne Stam (3.28, physics)
- Adam Tasei (3.12, business administration)
- Logan White (3.26, environment and sustainability)
The CC/NFF release states that the criteria to qualify were a cumulative GPA of 3.3 or higher for first-team status, 3.00-3.29 GPA for honorable mention, and if the player was considered a regular performer in any or all three phases of the game (offense, defense, special teams).
There were a record 291 student-athletes from the 10 football-playing colleges in the state named to this year's Academic All-Colorado team.
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