Football | 12/1/2014 11:28:00 AM

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Nebraska Wesleyan University's strong tradition of academic success continues to show as today two Prairie Wolves football players were named to the 2014 Capital One Academic All-America® College Division Football Team as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
 
Senior wide receiver Connor Zumpfe headlines the 2014 Capital One Academic All-America® College Division Football Team.  An exercise science major boasting a 3.98 GPA, Zumpfe has been recognized as the Capital One Academic All- American® of the Year for College Division Football.
 
Joining Zumpfe on the Academic All- America® team is senior defensive back Seth Wardyn.  With the honor in 2014, Wardyn becomes a 3-time CoSIDA Academic All- American®, the fourth NWU football player to earn the honor three times and first since 1998.  
 

The Capital One Academic All- America® College Division football team includes student-athletes from NAIA, Canadian and two-year institutions.  Nebraska Wesleyan Football now has 48 CoSIDA Academic All- Americans® ranking seventh among all institutions at all levels of competition.  As an institution, NWU has 149 Academic All- Americans® to rank eighth in the entire nation.
 
Zumpfe is the third NWU student-athlete to be recognized as a Academic All- American® of the Year joining Matt Kechely (baseball, 1995) and Erin Powell (women's track & field, 2006) as recipients.  He has been one of the top receivers in the NAIA this season with a conference-leading 69 catches for 1,068 yards and 11 touchdowns.  The York, Nebraska native was a First-Team All-GPAC performer.  He went over 100 yards in five straight games and caught a touchdown pass in seven of 10 games.  He hauled in nine catches for 209 yards and four scoring strikes against Doane College Oct. 4 to earn GPAC Offensive Player of the Week.
 
In two years on the football team, Zumpfe was a two-time All-GPAC honoree garnering honorable mention in 2013.  His reception and receiving yardage numbers rank second among single-season totals, while his touchdown catches are tied for second in program history.  Zumpfe finished sixth in NWU history in catches and seventh in career yards in only two years of player.  He has previously been named Daktronics/NAIA Scholate and Pflieger-Olson Scholar Athlete.
 

Wardyn, a senior defensive back from Grand Island, Nebraska, has a 3.83 GPA as a biology major.  He joins an elite group of three other NWU football players to be named Academic All- American® for three consecutive seasons.  He is the ninth NWU student-athlete to earn the honor three times.
 
Wardyn became the first Nebraska Wesleyan player to become a four-time All-GPAC performer since the league was established in 2000.  He earned 2^nd-Team All-GPAC in 2014 after racking up 62 tackles and three interceptions on the year.  In his career, Wardyn became the 12^th player in school history to surpass 200 tackles with 224.  He has also been named three-time Academic All-District, honorable mention All-Nebraska, a Daktronics/NAIA Scholar Athlete and Pflieger-Olson Scholar Athlete.
 
The 25-member Capital One Academic All- America® College Division Football first team has an average grade point average of 3.88, which includes five student-athletes with a 4.0 GPA.