CSC ACADEMIC ALL-AMERICA TEAMS

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- The Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology football team has placed two student-athletes on the CSC Academic All-America Team, announced by College Sports Communicators on Tuesday afternoon. Senior offensive lineman Dylan Page and junior running back Jay Smith each earned Academic All-American honors.

Page earned 1st-Team honors for the second consecutive season after he was the top offensive lineman on an impressive Rose-Hulman offense this season which had Smith break the single-season rushing yards record. The senior offensive guard and offensive tackle started all 10 games for the Fightin' Engineers for an offense that averaged 5.4 yards per play, the 11th most in a single season in school history. 

The junior biomedical engineering major and mechanical engineering master's student from Marion, Iowa carries a near-perfect 3.98 GPA while also dominating the line of scrimmage for the Fightin' Engineers on the gridiron. He also earned 1st-Team All-HCAC and 2nd-Team All-Region honors so far in 2024. Page is the first Fightin' Engineer to earn multiple Academic All-American honors during their career since Eric Kirby in 2019 and 2020.

Smith earned 2nd-Team honors as he led the Fightin' Engineers backfield by breaking Rod Schrader's 1983 single-season school record for rushing yards in a season with 1,297, and he also ran for the 3rd-most rushing touchdowns in a season with 16, the most since Carl "Rocky" Herakovich in 1958. He also broke Kyle Kovach's single-game rushing yards record with 252 and became the sixth different player to rush for 5 touchdowns in a game in the 52-10 win over Bluffton. 

Through his junior season, Smith ranks 13th in career rushing yards and 8th in career rushing touchdowns in Rose-Hulman history. Smith finished the season ranked top 12 in NCAA Division III in five different categories including 5th in rushing yards (1,297), 6th in rushing yards per game (129.7), 8th in rushing touchdowns (16), 10th in total touchdowns (18), and 12th in total points scored (108). 

The junior computer science major from Evansville, Indiana joins a decorated history of Rose-Hulman running backs with Smith, Garrett Wight, and Grant Ripperda earning a spot on the Academic All-America team in five of the last eight seasons. Other postseason awards for the junior running back include 1st-Team All-HCAC and 2nd-Team All-Region honors.

Rose-Hulman currently ranks No. 1 nationally among NCAA Division III institutions and No. 4 among all United States colleges by having a CSC Academic All-American in 39 consecutive calendar years as they have had a student-athlete earn Academic All-American honors in every single calendar year since 1985. Their streak of consecutive years with an Academic All-American trails only Nebraska (50), Georgia (45), and Penn State (41).

Rose-Hulman's cumulative total of CSC Academic All-Americans of 148 ranks in the 11th nationally in NCAA Division III with 52 of those awards coming from the football program.