ROLLA, Mo. – Three senior members of Missouri S&T’s football team have been selected today to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District first team for the 2009 season, earning them the opportunity to land Academic All-America honors.
Quarterback Jason Schlueter and offensive linemen John Krumme and Dan Hickman were all named to the first team, making each of them eligible to move onto the national ballot for the Academic All-America that will be announced Nov. 24.
Schlueter , a mechanical engineering major from Lafayette, Ind., has completed 207-of-314 passes on the season for 2,217 yards and 13 touchdowns, recently moving into third place on S&T’s all-time list for passing yardage. In Saturday’s win over Lincoln, he became only the third player in Miner history to go over the 4,000-yard mark for career passing yardage and ranks in the school’s top 10 for career completions, attempts, yards and touchdowns.
On two occasions this year, Schlueter has been named as the Great Lakes Football Conference’s “Player of the Week” and posted the sixth-best single game mark in school history when he threw for 438 yards in S&T’s 39-37 win on Oct. 24 over Saint Francis, the NAIA’s fourth-ranked team at the time.
Krumme, who is from Mineral Wells, W.Va., and majoring in chemical engineering at S&T, has started at offensive guard for much of his four-year career as a Miner, while Hickman, a Louisburg, Kan., native majoring in mechanical engineering, has started for a better part of the last three seasons at guard and center after transferring to S&T from Coffeyville Community College.
The Miner offensive line has headed a unit that is averaging 366.6 yards per game of total offense and is protecting Schlueter to allow him to complete nearly two-thirds of his throws on the season. A year ago, the Miner offensive unit ranked 11th in NCAA Division II in total offense, 15th in passing offense and scored a school record 408 points to rank 12th nationally.
Missouri S&T will conclude its 2009 season with a pair of road games, Saturday at Southwest Baptist and Nov. 14 at Kentucky Wesleyan.