Wildcat football scores APR award from FCS ADA

ABILENE – The Football Championship Subdivision Athletics Directors Association (FCS ADA) announced the recipients of the Academic Progress Rate (APR) Award, and Abilene Christian earned the Southland Conference's prize for Most Improved APR in 2017-18.

"Our student-athletes, coaches and academic staff have worked tirelessly to improve our APR scores across all sports," said ACU Director of Athletics Allen Ward, "and this recognition is a testament to everyone's extraordinary efforts over the past few seasons. Our next goal is to help football earn the conference's Highest APR award."

Houston Baptist, which entered the Southland Conference with ACU in 2013, received the league's Highest APR prize for 2017-18, while additional Most Improved honors went to Delaware and Rhode Island (Colonial Athletic Association), Eastern Illinois (Ohio Valley), Fordham (Patriot), Harvard (Ivy League), Mercer (Southern), Montana State (Big Sky), Morehead State (Pioneer), Presbyterian (Big South), South Carolina State (Mid-Eastern Athletic) and Youngstown State (Missouri Valley).

Head ACU football coach Adam Dorrel, who was named to his position prior to the 2017 season was effusive in his praise for his players, coaches and academic coaches.

"This is a big deal for all involved," he said. "Everyone on staff is constantly stressing the importance of academics, going to class, participating and earning a diploma, and after three straight years of receiving this message our student-athletes are now posting winning seasons in the classroom. Having our team finish the spring term with its highest GPA (3.01) since we moved up to DI FCS athletics is nothing short of outstanding, and I look forward to seeing our numbers increase."

Dorrel's 2018 Wildcats finished their season 6-5 overall and went 5-4 vs. the Southland Conference. At season's end a dozen players were named all-conference followed by sophomore quarterback Luke Anthony being voted Southland Conference Football Student-Athlete of the Year. The Wildcat signal caller additionally was tabbed to the FCS ADA Academic All-Star team, while teammate and wide receiver Josh Fink was selected to the 2018 Google Cloud Academic All-America NCAA DI football team.

Overall, 51 members of Dorrel's 2018 roster were placed on the Southland Conference's Commissioner's Honor Roll for posting a term GPA above 3.0.

"It is an honor for the FCS ADA to recognize the institutions that have excelled in the APR this year," said Director of Athletics at Bryant University and current FCS ADA President, Bill Smith. "The Association applauds those programs that achieved the top four-year APR mark in their conference as well as the programs in each league that showed the greatest improvement over the last year's mark. Academic success and retention are critical benchmarks for recognizing each FCS football programs commitment to academic excellence at their respective institutions."

The FCS ADA APR Award recognizes one institution at each of the 13 FCS conferences that has the highest APR score. In addition, the Association also recognizes one institution from each conference that has improved the most from the previous year.

The 24 institutions formally received their awards during the FCS ADA Luncheon sponsored by Borden Perlman Insurance Agency in conjunction with the 2019 NACDA Convention at the World Center Marriott in Orlando, Florida.