Pair of Bears earn football all-America honors

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about the many all-Big 12 honors received by Baylor football players this year. This week, we’re taking it up a notch. Congratulations to 2008 all-Americans Jason Smith, a senior offensive lineman, and Robert Griffin, the Bears’ freshman quarterback!

Smith, widely considered a probable first-round pick in this spring’s NFL draft, was named first-team all-America by the Football Writers Association of America and Phil Steele Magazine (no relation to the Bears’ former head coach there). Smith also earned third-team all-America honors from the Associated Press and Rivals.com. He is the 45th student-athlete in Baylor history to be named an all-American, and the first non-special teams player since safety Adrian Robinson in 1995.

Griffin, the consensus Big 12 Offensive Freshman/Newcomer of the Year, earned Freshman All-America recognition from four publications, including first-team honors from The Sporting News and Rivals.com. Griffin is the third consecutive Big 12 quarterback to earn first-team All-Freshman honors from Rivals.com, following Texas’ Colt McCoy and Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford. (You might recognize those names from this year’s Heisman Award finalist list.)

Sic ’em, Smooth and RG3!