The Northwest Conference's 1st Team All-American numbers

Wow.

D3football.com has been selecting an elite All-American football team since 1999.  It's a tough team to make as the folks at D3.com are selective and try to make this team a true honor and not just name everyone and their dog to generate some page clicks.

A total of 31 Wildcats have been named to D3football.com's All-American team while PLU has had 11 All-American honors, Willamette at 9, Whitworth with 8, L&C with 1, and UPS and Pacific (only 4 seasons in) are looking for their first selection.  Having 20 more All-American honors is pretty dominating as it is, but when you look at the 1st team All-American honors, that's when Linfield really puts the pedal down on the competition.   

Since 1999, Linfield players have been selected to 1st team status a total of 18 times by D3football.com while the next closest comes in at 2 selections (tie - PLU & Whitworth).  16 more 1st team All-American honors than the next closest NWC program.  That's pretty wild considering that PLU, Whitworth, and Willamette have each had very good runs of play over the past 15 seasons.  Add up PLU, Whitworth, and L&C and they're still 15 selections short of the what the 'Cats have been doing.

Dang.