Five Tigers Named to All-ACC Academic Football Team

Jan. 29, 2002

GREENSBORO, NC – Eleven players who earned first or second team All-Conference honors this past season also secured spots on the 2001 Atlantic Coast Conference All-Academic football team as announced by Commissioner John Swofford. To be eligible, a player must have earned a 3.00 grade point average for the fall semester or have maintained a 3.00 cumulative average during his academic career.

Heading up the 28-member All-Academic team were four All-ACC players from conference champion Maryland – quarterback Shaun Hill, guard Todd Wike, center Melvin Fowler and punter Brooks Barnard. Other first or second team All-ACC selections named were Clemson’s Kyle Young, Will Merritt and Chad Carson, Georgia Tech’s Kelley Rhino and Jeremy Muyres, Duke’s Mike Hart and Florida State’s Chris Hope.

Hart, Young, Merritt, Carson, Muyres and Hope are also among eight players selected to last year’s All-Academic team. Other repeaters from the 2000 team are Duke’s Ben Erdeljac, Georgia Tech’s Dan Dyke and Virginia’s Ljubomir Stamenich and Evan Routzahn. Florida State’s Chris Hope was a four-time All-ACC Academic Football Team selection while Clemson’s Chad Carson and Kyle Young, Duke’s Ben Erdeljac and Georgia Tech’s Dan Dyke were each named to the honors team for a third straight year.

Three players on the 2001 All-Academic team earned All-America honors this past season – Maryland’s Brooks Barnard and Melvin Fowler and Clemson’s Kyle Young. Young, the recipient of the league’s 2001 Jim Tatum Academic Award, and Florida State’s Chris Hope were named to the 2001 National Football Foundation/College Hall of Fame Scholar Athlete team.

Clemson had five selections to the 2001 All-ACC Academic Football Team, which equaled the most selections in history and the most since 1985. The Tigers also had five Academic All-Conference selections in 1965. Joining Will Merritt and Chad Carson on the 2001 team are Derrick Hamilton and Khaleed Vaughn.