WILLIAMSBURG, VA - William and Mary senior center
Cody Morris (Jeansville, PA) was one of four Tribe players named to All-Atlantic 10 Football Conference honors as released by the league office this afternoon.
Morris is joined by fellow seniors, tailback
Elijah Brooks (Largo, MD) and linebacker
Chris Ndubueze (Lanham, MD), in being named to second-team honors, while junior wide receiver
Joe Nicholas (Sugarloaf, PA) was a third-team selec-tion.
The honor was the third career all-conference designation for Morris, who has been a four-year starter for the College along the offensive front. After seeing action at guard for the first three years of his career, he moved down to center for his senior season. Despite the position change, Morris remained the team's top lineman, in terms of production and consistency. Morris is the first Tribe offensive lineman to earn all-conference honors in three consecutive years since former Tribe All-American guard Josh Beyer was tabbed from 1994 through the 1996 seasons.
Brooks was honored as a second-team selection for the second consecutive year and is the first Tribe tailback to earn all-conference honors in consecutive years since Alvin Porch was recognized after both the 1996 and 1997 seasons. For the season, Brooks ran for 931 yards on 183 attempts (5.1 yds/att). His average of 84.6 yards a contest ranked fourth in the Atlantic 10. His numbers are made even more impressive by the fact that he has accounted for over half of the team's total rushing attempts (327) and yards (1,399) on the season and has eight of the Tribe's 11 rushing touchdowns. Brooks gained an additional 163 yards (on 23 receptions) and has two kick returns for 27 yards, which pushed his season all-purpose total to 1,121 yards, an average of 5.3 yards a touch. Brooks will graduate with a career rushing of 2,536 yards, which stands in seventh-place on the school's all-time listings. Brooks had four 100-plus yard efforts on the season and nine in his career. His nine 100-yard efforts ranked him sixth all-time at William and Mary.
After starting the season as a reserve linebacker, Ndubueze emerged as one of the Tribe defense's most consistent contributors since moving back into the starting line-up at Liberty on Oct. 14. Starting that afternoon in the win over the Flames, Ndubueze proceeded to record four straight double-digit tackle performances before finishing with five total stops against both Delaware and Richmond to end the season. An all-conference performer in 2004, Ndubueze missed the entire 2005 season (personal reasons) but came back to his all-conference form for his senior season this fall. He finished the 2006 campaign with a team-high 75 total tackles and has 7.0 TFL and 4.0 quarterback sacks.
For the second-straight season, Nicholas ended the year as the team's leader in receptions (41), receiving yards (597) and re-ceiving touchdowns (eight). He become just the 10th receiver in school history to surpass the 2,000-yard career receiving yardage mark and currently sits in eighth place in the school record books with 2,127 career-receiving yards. The honor is the first for Nicholas, who started his career by setting the College's freshman record for receptions (66) in helping the team to the 2004 Atlantic 10 Title.
