A pair of Osceola County football products earned season-ending collegiate awards at the end of productive 2021 seasons.
Shortly after being named a Second Team All-American by D2CCA, Lenoir-Rhyne football freshman running back Dwayne McGee has been named a Division II First Team All-American by the Associated Press.
The Osceola High product broke the single-season rushing yardage record at Lenoir-Rhyne with his 1,669 yards on the ground in 2021. McGee also tied the program mark for most total touchdowns in a single season with 21 and was also named SAC Offensive Player of the Year and SAC Freshman of the Year.
McGee finished the year with 6.7 yards per carry and 19 rushing touchdowns. He added 14 catches for 69 yards and a pair of touchdowns receiving. He never had fewer than 18 carries this season, and went over 200 rushing yards twice, including a 200-yard, five-touchdown performance in a 59-0 win over Carson-Newman on Oct. 16.
The Rockford University football team had five players recognized by the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference, including quarterback Jaelen Ray, a Liberty High School alum who led the Chargers' 9-2 season in 2018. Ray was named an NACC Honorable Mention after what the Division III Rockford, Ill. school called "bar none the best season of any quarterback in school history."
He broke 12 school records, including two career records in his first full season in a Regent uniform. Ray now holds the RU records for passing yards (game and season), passing attempts (game and season), completions (game, season and career), passing touchdowns (game and season), total offense (game and season) and completion percentage (career). At the end of the regular season, Ray was at or near the top of the NACC in every passing category and was ranked in the top 27 in the country in eight statistical categories. He was second in NCAA Division III completions per game (28.6), third in total offense (3,516), fourth in passing yards (3,260) and passing yards per game (326), fifth in passing touchdowns (33), eleventh in points responsible for (212) and points responsible for per game (21.2) and was twenty-seventh in completion percentage (64.4%).
