List of Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year

The annually-awarded Football Academic All-America Team Member of the Year is the most outstanding singular college football athlete selected for the Academic All-America Teams in a given year. Selected by the College Sports Communicators (formerly known as College Sports Information Directors of America, or CoSIDA), the Academic All-America program recognizes combined athletic performance and academic achievement excellence of the nation's top student-athletes.

Formerly, an Academic All-District team of honorees based on CSC member nominations and voting was chosen in each of eight geographic districts across the United States and Canada.^[1] Academic All-District and All-America teams were chosen separately for various levels of collegiate athletic competition (known as divisions). For each division, a set of eight districts was delineated. For the NCAA Division I-level teams for the seasons up to the 2021–22 academic year, districts were as follows: – District 1 (CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI, VT), District 2 (DC, DE, KY, MD, NJ, PA, WV), District 3 (NC, TN, VA), District 4 (AL, FL, GA, PR, SC), District 5 (IL, IN, MI, OH), District 6 (AR, IA, LA, MN, MO, MS, MT, ND, SD, WI, WY), – District 7 (CO, ID, KS, NE, NM, NV, OK, TX), District 8 (AK, AZ, CA, HI, OR, UT, WA, Canada). Other divisions use other district groupings.^[2] Formerly, only first team All-District honorees made the All-America team ballots. In 2022, the All-District selection process was eliminated, with all eligible nominees being included on the Academic All-America final ballot. In addition, tennis and swimming & diving were added as separate sports from the at-large set of sports. Also, the qualifying grade point average was raised from 3.3 to 3.5.^[3]

From 1996 to 2010, this team selection process was held separately for the College and University Divisions. The University Division Academic All-America and Academic All-District teams included eligible participants from National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I member schools, while the College Division team included scholar-athletes from all of the following: NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), Canadian universities and colleges and two-year colleges. From each team one winner for each sport was chosen from both the College and University Divisions for all twelve Academic All-America teams including football to be the team member of the year. Thus, all twelve Academic All-American teams (men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's track & field/cross country, men's baseball, women's softball, men's football, women's volleyball, men's and women's swimming & diving, men's and women's tennis and all remaining sanctioned men's and women's sports as at-large teams) had one Academic All-American of the Year per division. One of these twelve sport-by-sport Academic All-Americans of the year is selected as the Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for each division.^[4] The most recent football player to win the all-sports honor is Brayden Long of Slippery Rock University, who received the Division II award for the 2024–25 academic year.^[5][a]

In 2011, the Academic All-America program was expanded from two to four divisions. NCAA Divisions II and III were separated into their own divisions, while the College Division was then restricted to non-NCAA institutions.^[6] Most recently, effective with the 2018–19 school year, the College Division was split, with NAIA members now receiving their own set of awards, while in some sports two-year college, Canadian institutions and any other institution not affiliated with the NCAA or NAIA also get a set of rewards under the College Division.^[1] However, the football selection process has incorporated Canada into the districts for the other four sets.^[2]