2018 Great Midwest All-Conference Football Team (PDF)
INDIANAPOLIS – As voted upon by the league’s head coaches, the Great Midwest Athletic Conference All-Conference Football Team and individual awards were officially announced on Friday morning.
Representatives from all eight competing member institutions were placed on the prestigious list that recognized first and second-team honorees and the honorable mention performers for the 2018 season.
The regular season culminated in Week 10 as Hillsdale officially wrapped the Great Midwest championship with a win over Tiffin. HC is preparing for a playoff appearance in the NCAA Championship bracket on Saturday up at Kutztown.
The conference certainly had a strong argument for more than one team to make it into the NCAA Championship bracket, but the national committee gave the Great Midwest one qualifier for the second year in a row (Findlay – No. 7 seed in 2017).
The composition of this year’s all-conference team includes 30 selections on the first team (15 offense/15 defense), 31 selections on the second team (one tie) and 47 different recipients of honorable mention all-conference awards.
The league enjoyed a strong 2018 campaign with four different teams being ranked in the AFCA Top-25 Poll and three schools being ranked at least once in the Super Region 1 regional rankings.
The Great Midwest also has a number of qualified all-region and All-American candidates as postseason awards will be announced by various publications in the coming weeks.
Great Midwest Coach of the Year - Keith Otterbein (Hillsdale)
In three years, the conference has had three different champions, and Otterbein’s Chargers certainly defied odds to take their place in the league’s young history. After being polled third in the preseason, Hillsdale made its ascent to the top of the Great Midwest with an undefeated run through the league schedule. That included top-25 wins over defending champion Ohio Dominican and a Week 10 triumph to secure the title over No. 15 Tiffin. Hillsdale is playoff bound as the No. 5 seed in Super Region 1 against No. 4 Kutztown from the PSAC this weekend. Under Otterbein’s watch, HC was tops in the league in scoring defense, passing offense, interceptions and pass defense efficiency.
Great Midwest Player of the Year – Chance Stewart (Hillsdale)
The senior 6-6 gunslinger has been a steady captain of the ship as the senior from Sturgis, Mich., was presented with the league’s overall top accolade. Stewart was the Great Midwest passing leader this year and will surely eclipse the 3,000-yard mark while threatening the single-season record by Ohio Dominican’s Grant Russell (3,182 in 2017) on Saturday vs. Kutztown. He completed over 63 percent of his passes in the regular season and averaged over 269 yards of passing per game. Stewart carved up defenses for 24 touchdowns vs. only seven interceptions while leading Hillsdale to a 9-2 record and its first conference title in a new league.
Great Midwest Offensive Player of the Year – Cory Contini (Ohio Dominican)
Contini is the reigning Great Midwest Offensive Back of the Year from 2017, and with a receiving corps ranking as arguably the deepest in the country from the Great Midwest, top offensive honors were well deserving for the star wideout from Dover, Ohio. Contini led the league in scoring with 102 points while pacing all wide receivers in touchdowns with 16. He was just 50 yards shy of a 1,000-yard season while pulling in 54 balls for 950 yards with a league-leading average of 17.6 yards per reception. Due to his success at Ohio Dominican in four years, Contini is squarely on the radar for scouts with the prospects of turning pro. In just two years with the conference, Contini has been a treat for fans to watch with over 2,100 yards receiving and 30 TD’s.
Great Midwest Offensive Lineman of the Year – Drew Callahan (Hillsdale)
One of the road graders for a stout offensive front, Callahan is the first line of protection lining up under center for Great Midwest Player of the Year and quarterback Chance Stewart. The 6-5, 303 senior from Clinton Township, Mich., has made a seamless transition from guard. His status as a first-team all-conference selection and individual award winner speaks volumes about what the coaches think of his abilities. Considering offensive linemen are graded through subjective systems and pancake blocks are the only stat really recorded, it’s an underappreciated role to do work in the trenches.
Great Midwest Offensive Back of the Year – Ashton Dulin (Malone)
Dulin is in rare company as a dual award winner in football, something that has only been matched by former Kentucky Wesleyan star and current NFL pro Keelan Cole. Dulin’s track and field successes have been well documented and it simply translates into a matchup nightmare wherever he lines up on the field. The 6-2 senior from Reynoldsburg, Ohio, has the prototypical build that scouts drool over, one of the reasons he was invited to the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl Game in Pasadena. Dulin was third in the league in scoring with 15 touchdowns and he did it rushing, receiving and through the return game. He was just 16 yards shy of a 1,000-yard receiving season and had 61 catches with 11 touchdowns scored.
Great Midwest Defensive Player of the Year – Ross Thompson (Ohio Dominican)
Ohio Dominican had a nine-win season under its belt while being denied entry into the NCAA playoffs. The narrative as being one of the most dominant programs in the country has not changed for ODU, which finished the season ranked in the AFCA Top-25 Poll. Thompson, the only two-time defensive player of the week for the season, was the ringleader for a swarming group that was second in rush defense and pass defense efficiency and third in interceptions. He was the league leader in total tackles with 108 in 11 games and averaged almost 10 stops per contest. Thompson finished 9.5 tackles for a loss, including four QB sacks, and picked off two passes while forcing two fumbles.
Great Midwest Defensive Lineman of the Year – Zach VanValkenburg (Hillsdale)
With an awesome name that sounds like the newest line of Marvel superhero, VanValkenburg flexed his muscle as a sophomore while serving as an instrumental cog towards HC’s championship season. The product from Hudsonville, Mich., was a disruptive force in the backfield as the league leader in sacks (8.5) while recording 58 tackles. He finished with 13 stops for a loss, fourth in the conference, and was tied for second in forced fumbles with three.
Great Midwest Defensive Back of the Year – Wyatt Batdorff (Hillsdale)
As one of the league’s top tacklers from a year ago, Batdorff patrolled a stingy Hillsdale secondary that gave up only 10 passing touchdowns on the season. Whether in pass coverage or helping out in run support, the senior from Grand Rapids, Mich., finished his regular season with 82 tackles to finish eighth in the league from his safety position. He recovered a pair of fumbles and picked off a pair of passes while starting all 11 games.
Great Midwest Freshman of the Year – Evan Ernst (Ohio Dominican)
Ernst really didn’t take over the keys to head coach Kelly Cummings’ offense until Week 3 in the regular season – and the rest after that is history. Ernst lit up the league with a conference best 28 touchdowns and threw for almost 2,500 yards in basically an incomplete body of work missing two games. He completed over 74 percent of his pass attempts and only threw seven interceptions. Ernst spread the ball out to his talented arsenal of receivers and set the single-game conference record with seven TD’s tossed against Alderson Broaddus. He also appeared in just the first half of the regular-season finale against Lake Erie, making it a fun speculative guess as to what the Mason, Ohio’s, true numbers for the season could have really settled out at. With former player of the year Grant Russell making his mark in 2017, Ernst appears to be the apparent heir to the throne as a star in the making.
Great Midwest Special Teams Player of the Year – Ashton Dulin (Malone)
The conference has some really shifty players that can take it to the house in the return game along with players of the week Maurice Thomas and Dante Waugh, both from Alderson Broaddus. Dulin already received the coaches attention for Offensive Back of the Year, but the speedster was equally as devastating on kickoffs and punts for the Pioneers. The senior racked up almost 2,000 yards of all-purpose yardage, easily serving as the league leader in that department. He returned three kickoffs for TD’s and averaged almost 30 yards per return.