List of Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year

The annually-awarded Football Academic All-America Team Member of the Year is the most outstanding singular college football athlete selected for the Academic All-America Teams in a given year. Selected based on excellence in both classroom achievement and athletic competition performance by the College Sports Communicators (CSC, known before the 2022–23 school year as College Sports Information Directors of America, or CoSIDA), the Academic All-America program recognizes combined athletic and academic excellence of the nation's top student-athletes.

Formerly, an Academic All-District team of honorees based on CSC member nominations and voting was chosen in each of eight geographic districts across the United States and Canada. Academic All-District and All-America teams were chosen separately for various levels of collegiate athletic competition (known as divisions). For each division, a set of eight districts was delineated. For the NCAA Division I-level teams for the seasons up to the 2021–22 academic year, districts were as follows: – District 1 (CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI, VT), District 2 (DC, DE, KY, MD, NJ, PA, WV), District 3 (NC, TN, VA), District 4 (AL, FL, GA, PR, SC), District 5 (IL, IN, MI, OH), District 6 (AR, IA, LA, MN, MO, MS, MT, ND, SD, WI, WY), – District 7 (CO, ID, KS, NE, NM, NV, OK, TX), District 8 (AK, AZ, CA, HI, OR, UT, WA, Canada). Other divisions use other district groupings. Formerly, only first team All-District honorees made the All-America team ballots. In 2022, the All-District selection process was eliminated, with all eligible nominees being included on the Academic All-America final ballot. In addition, tennis and swimming & diving were added as separate sports from the at-large set of sports. Also, the qualifying grade point average was raised from 3.3 to 3.5.

From 1996 to 2010, this team selection process was held separately for the College and University Divisions. The University Division Academic All-America and Academic All-District teams included eligible participants from National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I member schools, while the College Division team included scholar-athletes from all of the following: NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), Canadian universities and colleges and two-year schools. From each team one winner for each sport was chosen from both the College and University Divisions for all twelve Academic All-America teams including football to be the team member of the year. Thus, all twelve Academic All-American teams (men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's track & field/cross country, men's baseball, women's softball, men's football, women's volleyball and all remaining sanctioned men's and women's sports as at-large teams) had one Academic All-American of the Year for each of its divisions. One of these twelve sport-by-sport Academic All-Americans of the year is selected as the Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for each division. The most recent football player to win the all-sports honor is John Matocha of the Colorado School of Mines, who received the Division II awards for the 2022–23 academic year.

In 2011, the Academic All-America program was expanded from two to four divisions. NCAA Divisions II and III were separated into their own divisions, while the College Division was then restricted to non-NCAA institutions. Most recently, effective with the 2018–19 school year, the College Division was split, with NAIA members now receiving their own set of awards, while in some sports two-year college, canadian institutions and any other institution not affiliated with the NCAA or NAIA also get a set of rewards under the College Division. However, the football selection process has incorporated Canada into the districts for the other four sets.

History
Although Nebraska Cornhuskers football has the most Football Academic All-America selections, only Rob Zatechka has earned this award for Nebraska.

Several of the Football Academic All-America of the Year winners have gone on to win the overall Academic All-America of the Year. For Division I, Tommy Vardell (1991), Jim Hansen (1992), Rob Zatechka (1994), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Peyton Manning (1997), Matt Stinchcomb (1998), Chad Pennington (1999), Alex Smith (2004), Barrett Jones (2012), Carson Wentz (2015), Justin Herbert (2019), and Mac Jones (2020–21) all earned the overall award. Before the split, College Division selectees Chris Palmer (1995), T.J. Hess (2001), Josh Lamberson (2005) and Greg Micheli (2008) were overall winners. Since the split no Division III or NAIA winners have been the overall Team Member of the Year, but Division II honorees Jason Vander Laan (2015) and John Matocha (2022) have won the overall award.

Several have been repeat winners of this award. Justin Herbert is the most recent repeat Division I winner. He was preceded by Tim Tebow and Danny Wuerffel. Before the College Division was divided, its repeat winners included David Gubbrud, Chris Hatcher and Corte McGuffey. Since the split, Ugdam Goya has repeated at Division III and Jake Snodgrass and Cameron Dukes have repeated at NAIA.

Tables of winners
Names in bold indicate winners of the all-sports Academic All-America award.

Four-division era (2011–present)

 * Notes

Schools with multiple awards

 * Notes