By: Carrington Caul
What if I told you that the best receiver on the collegiate level isn’t named A.J. Green or Julio Jones? What if I told you that the best receiver in the collegiate level had a chance to go to any D1 school he wanted to attend in the nation but decided to go to D3? What would you say if I told you that he has video-game like statistics and he didn’t even play 4 years at his primary position?
Well start thinking of the answers because that’s exactly what Division 3 Mount Union’s 6’0 205lbs WR Cecil Shorts III did. Shorts, born in Cleveland, Ohio played Quarterback at Collinwood High School under his father. After his senior campaign he did receive a few scholarship offers from quality Division 1 schools.
Against everybody’s advice Short decided to attend Division 3 Mount Union college. Once he joined the team he decided he wanted to play WR but being brought in as a QB that was the position he played. His freshman season he suffered an injury that required him to miss some of the season. With the playing time he did receiver, Short Completed 16-of-24 passes for 209 yards, caught 12 passes for 289 yards and three touchdowns and also had 12 rushes for 108 yards with a pair of touchdowns. Not impressed yet?
Well at the beginning of his sophomore season Short decided he wanted to become a full time receiver. At the end of his first season as a pure WR Short caught 77 receptions for 1,484 yards and set a conference record with 23 Touchdown receptions. Also catching 7 catches for 178 yards and 2TD’s in the National Championship victory over UW-Whitewater it became evident that Mount Union has a special player on their team.
Starting his junior season with high expectations, Short didn’t fail to disappoint even though his team didn’t win the National Championship. Short finished his junior campaign with 100 receptions for 1,736 yards and 19 touchdowns. He also recorded 206 yards and 8 touchdowns and 34 carries. Failing to win the National Championship Short wanted to step his game up for his final season on the collegiate level and that was exactly what he did.
Rushing, passing and receiving wasn’t enough for Short, during his first three seasons with the Purple Raiders he caught 63 receptions for 1,106 yards and 17 touchdowns, 114 yards rushing with two touchdowns. But Short wasn’t finished yet, he also had 22 punt returns for two touchdowns averaging (16.1) yards a return and 9 kick returns with a touchdown and averaging (22.8) yards per kick return. Oh yeah he also missed three games that season due to injury.
Finishing his collegiate career with 55 games, Short also had 259 receptions for 4,705 yards and 63 touchdowns, he had 75 rushing attempts for 492 yards with 12 TD's on the ground along with two punt returns and a kickoff return for touchdowns. In total, he accounted for nearly 6,000 all-purpose yards (5,989 yards/108.9 yards per game).
He also finished with some impressive Accolades
‘08: Ed Sherman Award as OAC's top wide receiver
‘08: All-OAC First Team
‘08: D3football.com All-American
‘09: Ed Sherman Award as OAC's top wide receiver
‘09: All-OAC First Team
‘09: Consensus All-American named to D3Football.com
‘09: AFCA and AP Little All-America Teams
‘09: D3Football.com National Offensive Player of the Year.
No comments:
Post a Comment