Fresno State Athletics
Three Dogs Earn Academic All-District
11/4/2010 12:00:00 AM | General
Nov. 4, 2010
FRESNO, Calif. - The Fresno State football team continues to add to its academic trophy case.
Three more Bulldogs received impressive academic honors today when the College Sports Information Directors of America announced the Academic All-District teams. Andrew Jackson, Ben Jacobs and Vince Pascoe all were selected to the All-District 8 team. It was the second straight year Jackson and Pascoe were honored. Jackson became the school's first ever first-team Academic All-American in 2009.
The three outstanding student-athletes are eligible for consideration for the Academic All-America team.
To be eligible, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.30 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at their current institution and be nominated by the school's sports information director.
Jackson, a three-year starter at offensive guard, earned his degree in Business Administration and is presently enrolled in Fresno State's graduate program for Sports Administration. He was selected first-team All-WAC last season and honorable mention All-America.
Jacobs has started every game in his career (46) and ranks fourth all-time in career tackles at Fresno State with 338. He was a first-team All-WAC selection last season and is also enrolled in graduate school at Fresno State.
Pascoe is a third-year starter at tight end who has maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA in Mechanical Engineering.
Fresno State's three honorees on the All-District team were the second most of any school. Boise State, which had four, had the most and the Dogs were tied with Stanford with three, followed by Washington State, BYU and Hawaii with two each. The team is comprised of "University Division" members, all schools competing at the FBS and FCS levels of Division I. District 8 (West Coast) includes all teams from the Pac-10 conference, most of the members from the WAC, Mountain West, Big Sky and Great West Conferences.
"For the second year we have a good number of Academic All-District players," said head coach Pat Hill. "These guys are managing their life and contributing to our football team and campus community. We appreciate their efforts and are happy that they have been recognized and honored."
This comes a week after Fresno State's more recent Graduation Rates and Graduation Success Rates (GSR) score reported more good news. The Bulldog football team posted an all-time one-year high GSR rate of 89 percent.
As a department Fresno State graduation rate is up 8% (42 to 50%) over the last six years (2002-03 report). The graduation rate for Bulldog student-athlete continues to exceed the graduation rate of the Fresno State campus (50-48%).
Five Bulldog teams (Women's Basketball, Soccer, Women's Tennis, Volleyball and Equestrian) all surpassed department goals of 80 percent for the 4-year GSR cohort and four (Women's Basketball, Soccer, Volleyball and Equestrian) have met the department goal and national average of 63.5 percent for the 4-year Graduation Rate. Fresno State saw 70 student-athletes graduate last year.
* - The GSR measures graduation rates at Division I institutions and includes students transferring into the institutions. The GSR also allows institutions to subtract student-athletes who leave their institutions prior to graduation as long as they would have been academically eligible to compete had they remained.
Since the program's inception in 1952, the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) has bestowed Academic All-America honors on more than 14,000 student-athletes in Divisions I, II, III and NAIA, covering all NCAA championship sports.
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In 2009 five Bulldogs (Andrew Jackson, Robert Malone, Kevin Goessling, Moses Harris and Pascoe) were named to the Academic All-District 8 team. Fresno State led all schools with five all-district players, one more than Penn State.
Harris was selected one of the nation's top student-athletes and received an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship from The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame (NFF) as a finalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy.
With a current NCAA Academic Progress Score of 946, significantly higher than the national average for college football programs, head coach Pat Hill's program continues to achieve at a high level in the classroom. The Bulldogs NCAA APR score ranks in the Top 12 of programs in the West and among the highest of public institutions.
In addition to setting a high-standard for team APR scores and Academic All-District players, the Bulldog program continues to produce Academic All-WAC performers at a record clip.
The Bulldog football team had an all-time high of 18 student-athletes named to the Academic All-WAC team in 2009.
Under Hill the Bulldogs have produced a league-best 141 Academic All-WAC players and by the end of the 2010 season Fresno State will have the most Academic All-WAC performances of any school in the nearly 50-year history of the WAC.
Last year Jackson and punter Robert Malone, now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, were named first and second-team Academic All-America respectively.
On a national scale, Fresno State's two Academic All-Americans in 2009 was second only Penn State, with three student-athletes honored. The Bulldogs were the only school from the Western Athletic Conference to have any athletes honored as Academic All-Americans last season and had nearly as many as all of the Pac-10 schools combined. As a league, the Pac-10 Conference had a total of three players selected to the combined first and second teams.
"We Are Your Team!" Fresno State returns to action against WAC foe Louisiana Tech on Saturday, Nov. 6, at 1 p.m. PT. Follow the game on WAC Sports Net, KMJ Radio and ESPN Deportes. The next home game for the Bulldogs is Nov. 13 vs. Nevada. Tickets for that game are available by clicking the tickets icon at the top of this page.
