ABILENE – ACU senior quarterback Mitchell Gale has been named the NCAA Division II pre-season Offensive Player of the Year by
Lindy's magazine in its pre-season issue that is on newsstands now.
Gale – a three-year starter from Alva, Okla. – was also named first team pre-season all-America by the magazine.
The ACU Wildcats – who will be under the direction of first-year head coach
Ken Collums in 2012 – are ranked No. 13 in the magazine's pre-season poll. Defending national champion Pittsburg State (Kan.) is ranked No. 1 in the country, followed by Minnesota-Duluth, Northwest Missouri State, Midwestern State and last year's national runner-up, Wayne State (Mich.).
ACU and the rest of the Lone Star Conference will be making a move into Super Region III, which includes the LSC, Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, and the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
Wayne State of the GLIAC is the highest-ranked Super Region III team in the poll at No. 5. Following WSC is No. 8 Colorado State-Pueblo of the RMAC, No. 9 Grand Valley State (Mich.) of the GLIAC, ACU at No. 13 and No. 20 Hillsdale (Mich.) of the GLIAC.
The Wildcats were 8-3 last season and finished as the runner-up to Midwestern State in the Lone Star Conference. ACU reached the NCAA Division II playoffs for the sixth straight season in 2011 joining Northwest Missouri State, Albany State (Ga.) and North Alabama as the only NCAA Division II programs to reach the NCAA playoffs in each of the last six seasons.
Gale enters the 2012 campaign on the verge of putting his name in the history books. After throwing for 3,823 yards and 28 touchdowns last season he now has 9,127 yards and 76 TDs in his three years as the starter.
If he throws for at least 2,873 yards in 2012 he will join former ACU great Billy Malone as career 12,000-yard passers. By doing that, he would make ACU only the fifth school in NCAA history to feature two 12,000-yard passers in their history, joining Hawaii, Texas Tech, Houston and Weber State in that select club.
If Gale does top 12,000 yards, he and Malone will have topped that number as back-to-back starting quarterbacks, something only Houston (Kevin Kolb and Case Keenum from 2003-11) and Hawaii (Timmy Chang and Colt Brennan from 2000-07) have done in NCAA history.
Gale needs to pass for 2,886 yards to surpass Malone's career total of 12,012 yards and become the all-time leader in passing yards in both ACU and LSC history. He also needs just 2,545 yards of total offense to become the all-time ACU and LSC leader in that category as well.
