2020-21 CoSIDA Academic All-American NCAA Division II Football Teams
Since its first CoSIDA Academic All-American award winner in 1972, Hillsdale College has never had more than two honorees in the same year.
That makes what the Charger football program accomplished in 2021 even more impressive. Three Hillsdale players – seniors Alex Anschutz and Konnor Maloney, as well as junior Cole Johnson -- earned Academic All-American honors from CoSIDA in 2021, joining an elite club of just eight Charger football players to earn the honor since the program was started in 1952.
CoSIDA, the College Sports Information Directors of America, began the distinguished Academic All-America® program in 1952, and since then, has honored thousands of deserving student-athletes from numerous sports across all divisions with these elite Academic All-America® scholar-athlete honors. Student-athletes must maintain a 3.3 GPA or better and are selected based on their academic and athletic achievements.
Anschutz and Maloney each earned First-Team Academic All-American honors, making Hillsdale one of just five football programs in Division II with multiple first team honorees.
Anschutz (Lowell, MI/Lowell), a team captain in the 2020-21 school year, is a senior three-year starter who's earned back-to-back second-team All-G-MAC honors as Hillsdale's STAR, a safety/linebacker hybrid position. He led the team in tackles for loss and pass breakups in 2019, and has 179 career tackles, 6.5 tackles for loss, four interceptions and 19 pass breakups.
Off the field, Anschutz is a Biochemistry major, and he earned the President's Scholar-Athlete Award at Hillsdale College for maintaining a GPA of 3.8 or higher in both 2020 and 2021, and presented a semester-long research project in the spring of 2020 highlighting key points of the mechanisms involved in the human dopamine transporter in the brain. He's currently on track to graduate with high honors from Hillsdale College.
Maloney (Lansing, MI/Lansing Catholic), meanwhile, is a senior wide receiver and has been one of the top receiving threats in Hillsdale College history in three seasons as a starter, earning second-team All-G-MAC honors in 2019 after leading the conference in yards per catch. He's one of just seven Charger receivers to go over 2,000 yards for his career, and is 10th all-time in career receptions with 121.
Outside of football, Maloney is active on the Hillsdale Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, helping plan and set up several charitable endeavors, and has made the Dean's list at Hillsdale College seven semesters in a row. A member of the Tri Beta Biological Honorary, he also studied at an internship at the Michigan State University Institute for Quantitative Health Sciences and Engineering, assisting in and earning credit for the research for a scientific paper published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. An Exercise Science major, Maloney is on track to graduate with honors at Hillsdale College.
Johnson (Grand Ledge, MI/Grand Ledge), a redshirt junior offensive lineman, was named to the Academic All-American Second Team, making Hillsdale the only program with three Academic All-Americans across the two teams.
The junior has anchored the Charger offensive line as a starter for each of the past two seasons, earning honorable mention All-G-MAC in 2019 as a sophomore and first-team All-G-MAC honors this spring. He was the top player on a Hillsdale line that helped pave the way for 181 rushing yards in the spring, the second-most in the G-MAC.
A standout in the classroom, Johnson also earned the President's Scholar-Athlete Award at Hillsdale College for 2021, and was named Outstanding Senior by the Hillsdale Financial Management department this spring. He's made the dean's list all eight semesters at Hillsdale and earned a 4.0 GPA in each of the last two semesters. A Financial Management major, Johnson is on track to graduate with high honors from Hillsdale College.
Anschutz, Maloney and Johnson bring Hillsdale's total of CoSIDA Academic All-Americans in the program's history to 18, and they are the sixth, seventh and eighth Charger football players to be honored.
Football alumnus John Cervini was the first Charger to receive Academic All-American recognition in 1972, and fellow Hillsdale football stars Mark Kellogg (1981), Jason Ahee (1993), Kyle Wojciechowski (1995-96) and Kevin Clive (2002) also have earned recognition from the program prior to this season.
Anschutz, Maloney and Johnson all return this fall to play for Hillsdale in the 2021 campaign, which kicks off at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 4 on the road against Michigan Tech. Hillsdale's home opener is Saturday, Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. against rival Indianapolis.