College Football News – Guilford Sweeps Weekly ODAC Honors

FOREST, Va. – Guilford College’s De’Eric Bell (Jackson, Ga./Jackson) won the Old Dominion Athletic Conference’s Offensive Football Player of the Week Award and teammate Satiir Stevenson (Roselle, N.J./Abraham Clark) claimed the league’s Defensive Player of the Week honor Sunday. The announcement marks the Quakers’ first sweep of the ODAC’s weekly gridiron honors since 2006.

Bell, a 5-6, 185-pound freshman running back, made the most of his first college start in place of ODAC rushing leader Josh Schow by compiling 253 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns in Guilford’s Oct. 4 ODAC win over Washington and Lee University. He ran 24 times for a game- and career-high 149 yards and two touchdowns, caught a game- and personal-best five passes for 93 yards and a score, and returned a kickoff for 11 yards. His 253 all-purpose yards rank sixth in Guilford’s NCAA Division III football history and are the most in a game by an ODAC student-athlete this year. Bell’s 149 rushing yards mark the most by a Quakers’ rookie since Mike Williams ’13 ran for 181 yards against Southern Virginia University in 2009.

Through four games, Bell ranks second on the team and 10th in the league with 62.8 rushing yards per game. He has 41 carries for 251 yards and three touchdowns. Bell ranks fourth among the conference’s scoring leaders (6.0 ppg.) and seventh in all-purpose yards per game (109.5). He also has six receptions for 101 yards and a touchdown.

Stevenson, a 5-11, 200-pound defensive back, earned the league’s weekly honor for the third time in his career and is Guilford’s second defensive winner this season. He set the school record in Saturday’s win over Washington and Lee with 22 tackles, the second-highest figure in NCAA Division III this year. Stevenson, who also plays on special teams, had five solo stops and 17 assists against the Generals’ option offense. He also picked off his league-leading third pass of 2014, which led to a Guilford second-quarter touchdown.

Stevenson has an interception in each of the Quakers’ last three games and has moved into fourth place among Guilford’s career interceptions leaders with 13. He ranks 15th in Division III with 0.8 interceptions per outing. His 41 tackles (16 solo) top the team and his 10.3 stops per game rank 68th nationally and second in the ODAC.

The pair has helped coach Chris Rusiewicz’s Quakers to their first 4-0 start (1-0 ODAC) since 1994. Guilford visits league-rival Shenandoah University Saturday (10/11) at 1:00 p.m.