Hampton grad Dawson Dietz hoping for ‘amazing’ final season at Washington & Jefferson

By: John Grupp
Saturday, September 21, 2024 | 11:01 AM

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Hampton graduate Dawson Dietz is already among the most decorated Washington & Jefferson football players in the past 25 years.

This season, he can join an elite list on the national level.

After earning first-team All-American honors by D3Football.com each of the past two seasons, the senior defensive tackle is poised for a rare three-peat.

“I’ve thought about it, for sure,” Dietz said. “It would be amazing, one of the coolest things ever. That’s a big accomplishment, and I would be totally stoked to get it. But I’m just focused on playing well.”

That has not been a problem for the former Talbots two-sport star. Dietz added about 15 pounds during the offseason and now stands 6-foot, 260 pounds. Despite another season of constant double-teaming, he helped lead a W&J defensive unit that smothered Saint Vincent (59-6) and Thiel (58-7) in a pair of lopsided victories earlier this month.

“He’s a great player,” Saint Vincent coach Aaron Smetanka said. “He’s definitely improved from last year, and he was an All-American. You can just see his first step, his attack, and then he does a great job of shedding blocks and finishing plays once he’s in the backfield.”

Dietz, a former standout heavyweight wrestler at Hampton, got stronger this offseason without sacrificing quickness.

“I wanted to put on some weight while staying as fast as I can,” he said. “I feel like I’m just as quick. The first two games, I’ve been running down running backs. I definitely (feel stronger). The way I’m able to punch and explode on offensive lineman feels like it’s getting easier.”

Dietz’s postseason accolades have not come easily. Since D3Football.com was launched in 1999, no other W&J player has been named first-team All-American multiple times. As for a three-peat, only eight players in all of D-III football have done it in the past quarter-century, and none of them played in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference.

“We knew when we recruited him that he was going to be one of our top defensive linemen,” W&J first-year defensive coordinator Phillip Bobich said. “We knew we had something special. But we didn’t know he was going to be this great.”

Bobich has watched Dietz make steady improvement since the 2021 Hampton grad arrived at the school three-plus years ago. He said Dietz’s technique “is one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s one of the more technically sound guys that I’ve ever been around,” said Bobich, who played at Aliquippa a decade ago. “He’s one of the hardest-working guys on the team. He’s built into his frame. He’s a lot stronger.”

Dietz burst onto the scene as a sophomore in 2022, ranking in the top 10 in the nation with 23.5 tackles for losses and earning his first All-American nod.

A steady diet of double-teams — and a midseason ankle injury that he played through — combined to drop that number to 10.5 tackles for loss last season, with 6.5 sacks. But he played his best in big games, including a career high-tying 12 tackles in a 46-21 victory over U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in the 2023 ECAC Bowl. Following the season, he again was named first-team All-American.

He did that despite being double-teamed on virtually every snap.

Said Bobich, “There’s not many plays where he’s not drawing two (blockers).”

The extra attention frustrated Dietz at times. He wasn’t making as many big plays for a program that has enjoyed 40 consecutive winning seasons, including back-to-back 9-2 seasons since he arrived in the starting lineup.

“That was one of the wake-up calls,” Dietz said. “People kept telling me, ‘You know, you’re going to have a target on your back this year.’ I was like, ‘OK, whatever.’ But I got doubled-teamed a lot. It made it harder. But in the long run, it made it better for my teammates.”

The Presidents will host No. 22 Carnegie Mellon on Sept. 28 for homecoming and host No. 11 Grove City on Oct. 19 in a pair of games that could help decide the PAC championship. Dietz, in his final season of eligibility, said he would swap all of his postseason hardware for one conference title.

“We haven’t won a PAC championship,” Dietz said, “and that’s definitely something we as a team need to get.”

D-III Dominance

Hampton graduate Dawson Dietz, a senior defensive tackle at Washington & Jefferson, can become only the ninth three-time first-team D3Football.com All-American

Player Pos. School Seasons

Wayne Ruby Jr. WR Mount Union 2020, 2022-23

*Jefferson Fritz S Mary Hardin-Baylor 2018-21

A.J. Jackson Ret. Lake Forest 2019-21

Levell Coppage RB UW-Whiteside 2009-11

Alex Groh P Occidental 2007-09

Nick Kmic RB Mount Union 2006-08

Justin Beaver RB UW-Whiteside 2005-07

Jeremy Hood DL St. John’s 2001-03

* — Four-time selection

Tags: Hampton