2017 Great Midwest All-Conference Football Team (PDF)


INDIANAPOLIS – Individual award winners with first, second and honorable mention student-athletes, from eight institutions were recognized on the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Football All-Conference Team as announced on Thursday morning.

The league’s coaches conducted all voting for the sport’s second annual all-conference list, which included NFL rookie free agent Keelan Cole (Kentucky Wesleyan) as one of last year’s standouts in the inaugural all-conference ballot.
 
The 2017 Great Midwest All-Conference Football Team included an expanded list of individual award winners focused on different positions.
 
Eighteen different players were tabbed to the first team and second team while representing offensive, defensive and special teams positions. An additional 42 selections comprised the all-conference honorable mention team.
 
The second year of Great Midwest football saw Ohio Dominican rise to the top with an unblemished 7-0 league record, headlined with a 49-24 over No. 21 Findlay for the league’s championship trophy.
 
Findlay emerged as one of seven NCAA Championship qualifiers from Super Region 1 and is getting geared up to face Shepherd on Saturday with a noon kickoff from West Virginia. Hillsdale finished third in the league standings with a 5-2 record while Walsh, under first-year head coach Dan Pifer, earned four wins and finished over .500 in league play.

Alderson Broaddus and Lake Erie tied for fifth while Malone and Kentucky Wesleyan each recorded one league victory in 2017.
 
The league is also preparing to welcome Tiffin into the fold for the 2018 campaign, giving the conference additional depth heading into the third year of the sport’s brief history.
 
The top overall award was presented to Ohio Dominican senior quarterback Grant Russell with the Great Midwest Player of the Year, taking into consideration all positions on the field. Russell’s accuracy and precision was on display as he completed almost 73 percent of his passes with 3,182 yards, 30 touchdowns and only three interceptions with a 190.6 pass efficiency rating, all league-leading numbers (top 10 nationally) across the board.
 
Russell saved his best for last with a conference single-game record six passing touchdowns against Findlay in the league championship. He was a two-time Great Midwest Offensive Player of the Week and has been nominated for the Harlon Hill Trophy, DII’s equivalent of the Heisman Trophy.
 
Russell and Ohio Dominican matched Findlay at an identical 510.3 yards of total offense per game at the end of the regular season.
 
On the other end of the Panthers’ deadly offensive tandem was teammate Cory Contini, awarded Great Midwest Offensive Back of the Year (QB, RB, WR, TE) as he finished with seven receiving TD’s in the last two weeks of the season. Contini, a junior, was the league leader in receiving yards (1,186) touchdowns (14) and was second in receptions with 72.
 
Ohio Dominican gathered in additional individual honors with Great Midwest Freshman of the Year Devanaire Conliffe, one of the Panthers’ deep threats in talented wide receiving corps. Conliffe had a pair of 35-yard fourth quarter scoring catches in the conference title game and wound up with 314 yards and seven TD’s on 21 catches as a rookie.
 
Another ODU two-time winner of weekly awards was Great Midwest Special Teams Player of the Year Logen Neidhardt. Also a freshman, Neidhardt averaged almost 41 yards per punt with a long of 58 as he was integral in reversing field position against opponents. He pinned opponents inside their own 20-yard line 11 times and had 42 total punts.
 
As recognized by his peers, Great Midwest Coach of the Year went to Kelly Cummings, also from Ohio Dominican. Cummings, in his second season as head coach, had the Panthers in the conversation for a playoff spot at the end of the year as winners of seven straight with a conference title in hand. Ohio Dominican finished 7-3 overall, undefeated in the league standings and was a perfect 4-0 at home in Columbus.
 
Findlay, nationally ranked for the latter half of the regular season, received a trio of individual awards, including Great Midwest Defensive Back of the Year Aaron Ivory, Great Midwest Offensive Lineman of the Year Andrew Alten and Great Midwest Defensive Lineman of the Year Johnny Hopkins.  
 
The Oilers had won eight straight and maintained their standing as the league leader in many team categories including scoring offense (47.5 ppg), scoring defense (17.1 ppg), total defense (312.8 ypg), rushing offense (274.1 ypg), rushing defense (116 ypg) and pass defense (172.4 ypg).
 
It starts up front by winning the war in the trenches and doing things that aren’t calculated in the box scores as Alten, a senior from Loveland, Ohio, came into his final year with preseason All-American billing. Whether in pass protection or run blocking, Alten was the ringleader for the Oilers’ offensive line that churned out 38 TD’s on the ground and 28 more through the air.
 
On the other end of the ball, Hopkins and the UF defensive line wreaked havoc in opposing backfields, giving up only rushing TD’s and permitting just 4.1 yards per carry from opponents. The Oilers also had 16 sacks as a defensive unit as Hopkins recorded 43 tackles (23 solo) with 5.5 sacks, 13 tackles for a loss, a forced fumble and two recoveries.
 
Prior to this season, no one in conference history had an interception returned for a touchdown, but Ivory flipped that narrative with three pick sixes. Opponents were forced to throw early and often as the Oilers’ quick-strike offense would bury teams. Ivory tied for the league lead in interceptions (4) and led all players in return yardage (142). He also blocked a kick on special teams.

The complete all-conference PDF can be found at the top of the page.