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Armanti Elected to SoCon Hall of Fame

Armanti Edwards was a two-time Southern Conference Offensive Player of the Year in 2008 and '09. On Tuesday, he was selected for induction to the SoCon Hall of Fame. Photo by Keith Cline / App State Athletics
Armanti Edwards was a two-time Southern Conference Offensive Player of the Year in 2008 and ’09. On Tuesday, he was selected for induction to the SoCon Hall of Fame. Photo by Keith Cline / App State Athletics

Appalachian State University football great Armanti Edwards has been selected for induction to the Southern Conference Hall of Fame, SoCon commissioner John Iamarino announced on Tuesday.

Edwards is a member of the SoCon Hall of Fame’s sixth class and is Appalachian State’s sixth overall inductee. Women’s basketball’s Valorie Whiteside (2009), women’s track and field’s Melissa Morrison (2009) and Mary Jane Harrelson (2010), football’s Dexter Coakley (2011) and football coach Jerry Moore (2014) also represent Appalachian in the SoCon Hall of Fame, which elected classes annually from 2009-11 and moved to a biennial model in 2012.

Edwards is one of the most decorated football student-athletes in SoCon history. The left-handed quarterback, who played at Appalachian State from 2006-09, was the 2006 SoCon Freshman of the Year, a two-time SoCon Offensive Player of the Year (2008, 2009) and was named the league’s Bob Waters Male Athlete of the Year for the 2009-10 academic year. He helped lead the Mountaineers to four-consecutive SoCon titles.

On a national scale, Edwards is the only two-time winner of the Walter Payton Award (2008, 2009), given to the nation’s top NCAA Division I FCS player, and a three-time all-American (2007, 2008, 2009). He was the first Division I player (FCS or FBS) to ever pass for 10,000 yards and rush for 4,000 yards in a career and helped lead Appalachian State to two NCAA Division I FCS national championships (2006, 2007) and arguably the greatest upset in college football history when the Mountaineers topped No. 5 Michigan, 34-32, in the 2007 season opener.

Perhaps most impressively, Edwards earned a B.A. in graphic arts and imaging technology from Appalachian State in just three-and-a-half years.

Edwards went on to be a third-round pick of the Carolina Panthers in the 2010 National Football League Draft and spent four seasons in the NFL. He is currently a member of the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League.

Edwards was inducted to the Appalachian State Athletics Hall of Fame last fall.

He is joined in this year’s star-studded SoCon Hall of Fame class by Davidson’s Stephen Curry (men’s basketball – 2006-09), Furman’s Brad Faxon (men’s golf – 1979-83), ETSU’s Mister Jennings (men’s basketball – 1987-91) and Marshall’s Karen Pelphrey (women’s basketball – 1983-86).

Appalachian State was a member of the Southern Conference from 1971 until it joined the NCAA Division I FBS Sun Belt Conference in 2014.