TC’s Colston, Newton Garner National Recognition

Tusculum College's Tony Colston and Cory Newton have received D2Football.com National Football Player of the Week Honorable Mention recognition announced College officials Tuesday morning. Colston earned offensive player of the week honors, while Newton received Special Team recognition for the second time this year by D2Football.com. Colston was also named NCAA Division II National Offensive Player of the Week by Don Hansen's National Weekly Football Gazette.

Colston, a 6-4, 200-pound quarterback from Clinton, Tenn., tied a school single-game record with five touchdown passes in leading Tusculum to a 37-20 road win at Winston-Salem State University. Colston went 24-for-32 for a career-high 375 yards, while completing passes to eight different receivers.

With his performance, Colston moves into second place all-time with 28 TD passes as a Pioneer, which are only six away from the school career mark of 34 held by former TC signal caller Caleb Slover. Colston's passing yardage tally was also the fifth best in school history and he is also closing in Slover's all-time yardage mark. Colston has passed for 4,506 yards at Tusculum and is 467 yards off Slover's record 4,973 yards.

Newton, a 6-3, 200-pound Spring Lake, N.C. native, averaged 44.4 yards on his five punts in his return to Bowman-Gray Stadium. Newton played his rookie season at WSSU in 2001 where he earned All-CIAA Second Team honors. Newton recorded a pair of 50-yard punts, both from the Tusculum end zone. He also pinned the Rams with a pair of punts inside the 20-yard line. Newton is averaging 42.7 yards per punt this season which is 11th nationally in NCAA Division II.

The Pioneers (2-1) are idle this week as they prepare for their Sep. 25 South Atlantic Conference opener at Wingate University.