Catamount Athletics Year in Review: #10

Checking in at #10 in our inaugural "Catamount Athletics Year in Review" is WCU's 2012 Football Season. 

Eight months after being introduced as the 13th head coach of Western Carolina's football program, the first official game of the Mark Speir era was played against mountain-foe, Mars Hill, on Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012.

Head Coach Mark Speir won that first game, but it was to be the only win during his first season trying to turn around a program that hasn't seen winning season since the 2005 (5-4) under former coach Kent Briggs.

The 2012 season is the fourth, one-win season for a first-year Catamount head football coach. Speir joins James Whatley (1-6-1 in 1939); Marion McDonald (1-3 in 1945) and Dan Robinson (1-9 in 1956) as first year, one win coaches.

Western Carolina dropped ten-straight football games in the 2012 season, since winning its season-opener, then closing out the year against Number 4 nationally ranked Alabama.

Three Catamount football players from the 2012 squad were named Academic All-District III as selected by the members of College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). Seniors Conner Orr, Rock Williams and junior Clark Sechrest were honored for their performances both on the gridiron and in the classroom.

Senior linebacker  Rock Williams was named to the All-Southern Conference team. Williams was selected to the first team defense by the media while being tabbed second team by the league's nine head coaches. Additionally, four Catamount freshmen - running back Darius Ramsey, quarterback Troy Mitchell and defensive backs Sertonuse Harris and Jaleel Lorquet - were named to the All-Freshman Team by the coaches.


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