The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/49933
■ PACK PAST Offensive Lineman Jim Ritcher And Kicker Marc Primanti Made Wolfpack History As National Award Winners Ritcher was a two-time winner of the Jacobs Blocking Trophy as the ACC's best lineman. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE MEDIA RELATIONS BY TIM PEELER cord 11 interceptions and first-team All- ACC honors. Though he is hardly the first NC State D football player to earn such distinction on the ACC level — NC State has produced seven ACC Players of the Year and 188 first-team All-ACC selections — what makes Amerson's season so special is the fact that he gained national recognition for it. That hasn't been easy for Wolfpack foot- ball players to do. In the nearly 12 decades of NC State football history, the school had produced just two national award win- ners until Amerson added his name to the 70 ■ THE WOLFPACKER avid Amerson's truly remarkable breakout season included an ACC-re- history book in early December, when the Columbus Touchdown Club announced him as the winner of the 2011 Jack Tatum Award as college football's top defensive back. Though it's not part of the National Col- lege Football Awards Association, which oversees the voting and distribution of col- lege football's top awards, the Columbus Touchdown Club is in the lineup of the nation's top football clubs. And the Ta- tum Award is well respected, much like the Bobby Dodd Award, which was given to NC State's first-year head coach Dick Sheridan in 1986 as the National Coach of the Year for leading the Wolfpack to an 8-3-1 record and a trip to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta. Such national recognition eluded some of the greatest football players in NC State history, All-Americans such as Roman Ga- briel, Philip Rivers, Torry Holt, Ted Brown, Dennis Byrd and Mario Williams. That's due in part to the relative youth of the na- tional college football awards. There are 18 major awards given by the NCFAA, broken down by position or offen- sive/defensive. Only three — the Heisman (established 1935), the Maxwell ('37) and the Outland ('46) — are older than 40 years old, and a dozen are barely 25 years old. But it's also difficult at NC State, which hasn't won an ACC title since 1979 and has never finished in the top 10 of the As- sociated Press football rankings. Brown and Rivers — who set season and career