2021 Don Hansen NCAA Division II All-America Team
A special final season has helped ensure that Jack Shannon leaves Hillsdale College with an unprecedented individual honor.
On Monday, Shannon, a senior punter, was announced as one of the members of the 2021 Don Hansen NCAA Division II All-America team, earning honorable mention recognition.
Selected annually by the Don Hansen Football Committee, the Don Hansen team carries out the legacy of long-time small college football advocate Don Hansen, who passed away at age 75 on Aug. 29, 2010. Hansen, from Brookfield, Ill., started and published Don Hansen's National Weekly Football Gazette for three decades, selecting NCAA Division II All-America teams for the first time in 1988.
Shannon is just the second specialist and the first pure punter to earn All-American honors in the 129-year history of Charger football, joining long-time NFL kicker Chester Marcol (1969, 1970, 1971) as the only special teams player to be recognized as an All-American.
Along with Marcol, Shannon is also inarguably one of the greatest punters in the history of the Hillsdale program. He holds three of the top ten spots for single-season yards per punt average in Charger history, with his fall 2021 season ranking fourth all time at 44.3 yards per punt. For 2021, Shannon punted 60 times for 2,657 yards, with a long of 69 yards. He put 25 of his punts inside the 20-yard line, and had just five touchbacks on the season.
Perhaps his finest moment in 2021 came in Hillsdale's road upset of Tiffin on Oct. 2, 2021, when Shannon set a G-MAC record with 447 punting yards, including a long of 62. The final punt of his 10 on that day was a precision-placed 51 yard rocket that went out of bounds at the 1-yard line, pinning Tiffin deep with 1:48 to play and the Chargers' clinging to a 24-21 lead. The field-position advantage created on the play all but sealed Hillsdale's victory in the contest.
Shannon also holds the G-MAC record for career yards per punt at 42.1, and is second all-time in both season yards per punt (44.3 in 2021) and single game yards per punt (48.4 against Tiffin on Apr. 3, 2021). For his career, the Huntertown, Indiana native was a three-time All-G-MAC honoree, earning second team honors for both the Spring 2021 and Fall 2021 seasons, as well as honorable mention honors in 2018. Shannon also won Hillsdale College's One Play Warrior Award as the team's top special teams contributor in the 2021 season.
The senior is the second Hillsdale player to earn All-American honors from the 2021 team, joining teammate Nate Chambers, who received second-team honors from the AFCA and also made d2football.com's Elite 100 list.
Photo by Anthony Lupi