Iowa captain and senior linebacker James Morris has been named a finalist among 170 other candidates for the 2013 National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete Awards.

Each school is limited to one nominee apiece, but one must be a senior, and have at least a GPA of 3.2 to be eligible to receive the award.

Morris, a political-science major, has been awarded Academic All-Big Ten honors two years running now and was named to the Capital One District VI Academic All-America team in 2012.

Sixteen recipients will be selected by the Foundation, and the results will be announced through a press release on Thursday, Oct. 31. Each recipient will receive an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship.  

“The National Football Foundation would like to personally congratulate each of the nominees as well as their schools on this tremendous honor,” National Football Foundation President & CEO Steven J. Hatchell said in a release. “We are extremely proud to highlight each semifinalist’s achievements, which show that football players can balance between academics and athletics at the highest level. There is no question that the National Football Foundation Awards Committee will have an incredibly difficult task in selecting the finalists from among this esteemed group.”

— by Ben Ross