{"id":119854,"date":"2016-12-02T09:10:12","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T14:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=119854"},"modified":"2016-12-02T16:30:23","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T21:30:23","slug":"football-pair-named-american-athletic-conference-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/12\/football-pair-named-american-athletic-conference-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"Football Pair Named to All-American Athletic Conference Teams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b> <\/b>UConn senior safety <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uconnhuskies.com\/sports\/m-footbl\/mtt\/obi_melifonwu_809934.html\">Obi Melifonwu<\/a>\u00a0was named First Team All-American Athletic Conference on Wednesday, while senior wide receiver <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uconnhuskies.com\/sports\/m-footbl\/mtt\/noel_thomas_jr_837040.html\">Noel Thomas Jr.<\/a>\u00a0was named to the Second Team.<\/p>\n<p>Melifonwu, of South Grafton, Mass., led UConn in tackles this past season with 118, and also had a team-leading four interceptions. He is 14th in the country in tackles per game, and second in the American Athletic Conference. Melifonwu was also ranked 23rd in the country in interceptions.<\/p>\n<p>He tied a school single-game record last Saturday with 24 tackles against Tulane. Melifonwu has accepted an invitation to play in the 2017 Reese\u2019s Senior Bowl. He also earned All-New England honors this season.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas, of Norwalk, Conn.,\u00a0led UConn in receiving with a school single-season record 100 receptions for 1,179 yards, which was second. For his career, he had 183 receptions, which is fourth in school history, for 2,235 yards, eighth in school history.<\/p>\n<p>He is fifth in the country in receptions per game at 8.3, and third in the American Athletic Conference; and is 14th in the country receiving yards per game at 98.3.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas is a two-time All-New England selection, and will receive the Bulger Lowe Award later this month from the Gridiron Club of Boston as the top player in New England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seniors Obi Melifonwu and Noel Thomas Jr. earned the honors. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":119864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1712,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[175],"class_list":["post-119854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 02:00:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119854"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119902,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119854\/revisions\/119902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/119864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119854"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=119854"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=119854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}