Andrew Ankrah Wins FCS ADA Defensive Player of the Year Award

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Just three days away from playing for the national championship, James Madison redshirt senior defensive lineman Andrew Ankrah has won the 2017 FCS Athletics Directors Association Defensive Player of the Year, honoring the country's top defensive player.

A Consensus All-American, Ankrah is JMU's historical third national defensive player of the year, joining former linebackers Derrick Lloyd and Arthur Moats, who respectively won the 2001 and 2009 Buck Buchanan Awards. Ankrah is also a top-3 finalist for this season's Buchanan Award, announced on Friday night in Frisco, Texas.

Ankrah earned All-America first-team accolades from the Associated Press, the FCS ADA, STATS, the American Football Coaches Association, the Walter Camp Football Foundation and HERO Sports.

From Gaithersburg, Md., he is the 2017 Colonial Athletic Association Defensive Player of the Year and Touchdown Club of Richmond Division I Defensive Lineman of the Year by helping JMU to one of its best defensive seasons on record. This season, he has tallied 54 total tackles (29 solo), to go with 15.5 tackles for loss, 8.5 sacks, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and a defensive touchdown. He ranks fourth all-time at JMU with 26.0 career sacks.

Ankrah will be honored following the first quarter of this Saturday's national championship game at Toyota Stadium for winning FCS ADA Defensive Player of the Year.

The top-seeded Dukes face No. 2 North Dakota State in the 2018 NCAA Division I Football Championship game on Saturday, Jan. 6 at noon ET (11 a.m. CT) The game is broadcasted nationally on ESPN2 and heard on the JMU/Sprint Broadcast Network.

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