KILLINGWORTH, Conn. — Alfred State senior defensive back Rylie Van Fleet (Endwell, N.Y.) has been named to the 2023 College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-America® First Team, as announced by the organization earlier this week.
Van Fleet currently sports a 3.91 cumulative grade point average (GPA) as a health sciences major at Alfred State.
The senior defensive back also posted the second-highest GPA among his position group (eight honorees total) between the All-America® First and Second teams, which featured 26 and 24 award winners, respectively.
On the field, Van Fleet recorded 36 tackles, six interceptions, and four pass breakups alongside his punting and return specialist duties in 11 games played this season.
His national rankings included the following figures: No. 21 in interceptions per game (0.5, 2nd in ECFC), No. 26 in punt returns (19 total, 196 yards, 10.3 average, 1st in ECFC), and No. 59 in punting (54 attempts, 2,000 yards, 37.0 average, 1st/1st/2nd in ECFC).
For his efforts, Van Fleet earned All-Eastern Collegiate Football Conference (ECFC) First Team Defense honors.
The College Sports Communicators Academic All-America® Program, formerly named CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America), has honored more than 40,000 student-athletes since 1952 with the prestigious title of Academic All-American for their outstanding academic and athletic achievements.
Student-athletes must have at least a 3.50 GPA (on a 4.0 scale) and compete in 90 percent of the institution's games/contests/sets played OR must start in at least 66 percent of the games/contests/sets to be eligible for the award.
This past season, 87,104 football student-athletes competed at 765 institutions across NCAA Divisions I, II, III, and the NAIA.
Only 175 student-athletes, which represents just 0.2% of all NCAA and NAIA football student-athletes nationwide, earned the title of Academic All-American for the 2023 season, as voted on by CSC members.
About the ECFC
The Eastern Collegiate Football Conference was formed in the spring of 2009 as an NCAA Division III single-sport football conference. The conference, named after the geographic location of the institutions began competition in the fall of 2009.
Current members are Alfred State College (Alfred, NY), Anna Maria College (Worcester, MA), Dean College (Franklin, MA), Gallaudet University (Washington, D.C.), and Vermont State Castleton (Castleton, VT.)
The mission of the conference is to:
- Promote intercollegiate varsity football as an integral part of the educational experience of all competitors.
- Establish a conference schedule and determine a conference champion that will represent the conference as the automatic qualifier to the NCAA national tournament.
- Adopt sportsmanship, fair play, moral integrity, and competitive excellence as cornerstones of the conference.
