Gallaudet's Todd Collins, Maritime's Diogo Dietrich, and Husson's John Smith have been named to the D3football.com All-East Region Team. The trio represents the ECFC among 79 other honorees from 310 nominations.
All-Region teams were selected in balloting by sports information directors in each region and D3football.com staff. All players nominated for All-Region are eligible to be considered for the D3football.com All-America Team.
Collins was a remarkable player for the Bison who was named to the D3football.com Team of the Week (Nov. 10) and has been named to Eastern Collegiate Football Conference (ECFC) All-Conference teams three times in his career, and on first team offense for the second straight year. Collins played multiple positions during the season, starting on offensive line as well as playing on offense and defense some games, he was on the kickoff return team and moved to tight end at the end of the season.
Collins is the fourth Bison in school history to receive D3football.com All-Region recognition joining Jaris Alleyne (2014) selected for third-team defense, Adham Talaat (2013) and Tony Tatum (2012), who were second-team defense selections during their respective years.
Smith is the third Eagle player to be selected to team. This season he broke nine single-season school records: rushing yards (1,733), rushing attempts (296), rushing touchdowns (20), rushing yards per game (173.3), total offense yards (1,733), touchdowns responsible for (22), all-purpose yards (1,829), total points scored (134), and touchdowns scored (22) and two single-game school records: rushing yards (276), and all-purpose yards (299) in the lost to Salve Regina.
He led the entire conference in rushes, yards, yards per rush (5.9), and touchdowns, while surpassing the 100-yard mark in all but two contests, tying his single-season record of eight which was set just last season and the 200-yard mark twice. He now has 16 100-yard rushing games in his career, leaving him one shy of the career mark.
This season Smith became the first Eagle player in program history to score 100 points in a single-season and the second player in program history to surpass the 3,000-yard career rushing plateau and now has 3,141 in just two seasons. He needs 451 rushing yards to become the all-time career leader. Smith also became the third player to exceed 3,000 career yards of total offense and all-purpose yards and the second player to score 200 points in program history.
Dietrich earns his second consecutive All-East Region accolades as he was named to the 2014 East Region Second team following his junior year a season ago. The selection also makes Dietrich the first Privateer in department history to receive multiple all-region selections.
Dietrich put together yet another strong season as the Privateer placekicker, which resulted in him earning Eastern Collegiate Football Conference All-Conference First Team accolades for the third consecutive season.
In 2015, he ended the season fifth in the ECFC with 64 points. He converted on 11-of-14 field goals (79.5%), including his program-record 52-yard field goal in the last game of the season against Gallaudet on November 14. He also made 31-of-33 of his extra point attempts (94.0%), while earning ECFC Special Teams Player of the Week honors on three occasions.
For his career, Dietrich ended his time with the Privateers second all-time in scoring with 190 points on 91 point-after attempts and 33 field goals. He holds the all-time record with his 91 PATs and an 89.2 kicking percent on his PAT attempts, he also holds the record for most field goals kicked as he also holds the top spot for field goal percentage at 76.7 percent for his career.
He also holds the program record for longest the three longest field goals in program history as he converted for a 49-yard field goal attempt last season against William Paterson. He followed that up with a 47-yard field goal against Mass. Maritime this season, before kicking the longest field goal in program history in his final attempt of 52 yards during his last collegiate game against Gallaudet on November 14 this season.
