Joining Ashley on the first-team were four defensive players — Brian Claybourn, Deont Smith, Antonio Thomas and Charles Thompson. The Hilltoppers — who just concluded a 9-3 season in which they qualified for the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs for the fifth consecutive year — had 13 players recognized overall, as only league champion Southern Illinois had more first-team selections or total honorees than WKU.
Justin Haddix, Erik Losey, Lerron Moore and Joe Woolridge all were chosen second-team all-conference, while Dennis Mitchell, Marion Rumph, Brandon Smith and Ryan Thomas earned honorable mention all-Gateway accolades.
Voting was conducted among the league’s eight head coaches and sports information directors as well as selected media representatives.
Ashley, a 6-foot-4, 300-pound native of Owensboro, Ky., recorded grades of 94 percent overall and 97 percent in production while leading the team with 159 pancake blocks in the regular season. He did not allow a sack and gave up only two quarterback pressures on 222 pass attempts as the Hilltopper offense averaged 396.4 yards and 29.2 points per outing. Ashley was the only player in the league to win the Offensive Lineman-of-the-Week award twice this year.
Ashley and Fred Layne of Western Illinois became the first two linemen in conference history to earn three first-team all-league selections this season, while Ashley and Claybourn — along with Illinois State’s Boomer Grigsby — bring the number of players recognized in all four years of their career to 18.
Claybourn is a first-team choice for the second straight season after averaging a school season-record 43.4 yards per punt — he ranks fourth in the country in the category, with the Toppers standing seventh in net punting thanks to his efforts. A 6-foot-1, 185-pound senior from Evansville, Ind., he had 14 kicks downed inside the opponents’ 20-yard line while recording 14 punts of 50 yards or longer (including a season-best 61-yard effort at Eastern Kentucky).
A 6-foot-1, 210-pound senior inside linebacker from Louisville, Ky., Smith led the squad with 112 total tackles, which included 10.5 stops behind the line. He intercepted a pair of passes, forced one fumble and recovered another while pacing Western in tackles in half of its 12 contests. Smith — who was twice named conference Defensive Player of the Week, winning the national award once — had 10 or more stops on seven occasions this fall.
Thompson fell one tackle shy of triple figures, posting 99 stops (including eight for loss) in his final season on the Hill. One of 16 finalists for the Buck Buchanan Award given to the top defensive player in I-AA football, the 6-foot-1, 240-pound Louisville native was a two-time Gateway Defensive Player of the Week, earning national honors on one occasion after posting a career-best 18 tackles — including 2.5 for loss — in the Hilltoppers’ win at Eastern Kentucky Sept. 18.
It’s the third time in four years since joining the Gateway Conference that WKU has claimed two of the four linebacker spots on the first-team all-league squad.
Thomas, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound resident of Louisville, tied for the league lead and ranks ninth in the country with a career-best seven interceptions after his first season starting at cornerback — he also stands among the top 30 nationally in passes defended after breaking up an additional eight attempts. He led all conference players at his position with a career-high 75 total tackles, which included the first 3.5 for loss in his three years on the Hill.
