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Chris Rocco (left) and Matt Bevins (right) have been named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District 3 football team.

ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District 3 football team listing

Liberty football players Chris Rocco and Matt Bevins are leaders both on the field and in the classroom and the pair was honored, today, for the academic endeavors by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Both Rocco and Bevins were among the 23 student-athletes named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District 3 team, which is presented annually by CoSIDA.

The listing includes 13 FCS players and 10 players from the FBS level, spotlighted by Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, who was named last year’s ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America of the Year. All 23 student-athletes will now move onto the national ballot, where they will be eligible to be named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America team.

Rocco and Bevins were two of four Big South student-athletes named to the list. Joining Liberty’s pair was Gardner-Webb’s Mario Brown, who is a senior linebacker with a 3.61 GPA in political science major, and Presbyterian’s Matt Freeman, who is a senior defensive lineman with a 3.86 GPA in music.

Rocco (DB, Forest, Va.) is in his final year with the program and the defensive team captain is one of the leading tacklers on the squad.

The kinesiology major with a 3.98 GPA, currently ranks third on the team with 44 stops, to go along with two pass breakups and a forced fumble.

Rocco is one of 11 players on Liberty’s roster to have picked off a pass in 2009, which has helped the Flames rank No. 4 nationally in total interceptions (15). Rocco has started 23 career games in Liberty’s defensive backfield and is out of the program’s active leaders with 150 career tackles and 10 pass breakups.

In just two years with the program, Bevins (K, Newport News, Va.) has already started to move up on the Flames’ kicking and scoring charts.

Bevins, who has a 3.58 GPA through two semesters at Liberty, leads the Big South and ranks No. 17 nationally, as he is average 8.38 points per game.

He is the nation’s fourth-most successful FCS kicker, as he is averaging 1.63 field goals per game and has knocked down 13-of-16 field goal attempts.

With 67 points scored through the first eight games of 2009, Bevins already ranks fourth in program history in scoring by a sophomore. For his career, Bevins has hit 25-of-32 field goals and 48-of-50 PATs, giving him 123 points, a mark which has him ranked No. 20 nationally in FCS football among active career scoring leaders.