BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – The Ohio Valley Conference released its 2019 All-OVC Football Teams on Tuesday morning and nine Jacksonville State players were recognized in some way.
 
Two Gamecocks – safety Marlon Bridges and punter Jason Pierce – were named First Team All-OVC, while six were named Second Team All-OVC. Quarterback Zerrick Cooper, receiver Josh Pearson and tackle Michael Shaddix were voted to the second-team offense, while defensive end DJ Coleman, linebacker Zack Woodard and safety Traco Williams were honored on the second-team defense. Receiver KJ Stepherson was named to the OVC All-Newcomer Team.
 
Bridges, a redshirt-senior from Lanett, Ala., earns his fourth All-OVC honor in as many years on the field for the Gamecocks, including three on the first team. He finished the 2019 season with 59 tackles despite fighting nagging injuries for the second-straight season. He recorded five tackles for a loss and a sack, while breaking up five passes, picking up an interception and forcing a fumble. His 296 career tackles rank third in school history.
 
Pierce, a sophomore from Powder Springs, Ga., grabs his first All-OVC honor and becomes JSU's first all-conference punter since Hamish MacInnes was a first-team pick in 2014. He was second in the OVC in punting average at 41.8 yards per punt and led the league with 12 punts of 50 yards or longer. He pinned 20 (42 percent of his kicks) punts inside the opponents' 20-yard line and forced a fair catch on 18 of them. His 69-yard boot against Murray State on Oct. 26 was the longest by an OVC player this season.
 
A junior from Jonesboro, Ga., Cooper earns his second-straight All-OVC honor after being named a first-team selection in 2018. He extends JSU's streak of consecutive seasons with a quarterback on the All-OVC teams to seven. In 2019, Cooper finished the regular season ranked eighth nationally in total offense with 310.3 yards per game, eighth in passing yards with 3,404 yards, ninth in points responsible for with 204 and 11th in passing touchdowns with 28. In just two years at JSU, Cooper has the top two single-season passing marks and ranks third in school history for career passing yards (6,820). He also has the top two single-season passing touchdown marks and ranks seventh in OVC history and second in JSU history with 60 career passing touchdowns, just one away from Ed Lett's school record of 61 from 1979-82.
 
Pearson, a senior from Decatur, Ala., also earned his second-straight All-OVC nod after a first-team mention a year ago. He wraps up a record-breaking two seasons on the field for JSU with a school-record 30 touchdown catches that rank among the top 10 in OVC history. His 13 touchdown catches in 2019 are the second-most in a season in school history to his school-record 17 set in 2018. This season saw him lead the FCS in touchdown catches for the second-straight season and haul in 59 catches for 943 yards, tying Joey Hamilton (1998) for the fifth-most in a season in JSU history.
 
Shaddix, a sophomore from Fort Payne, Ala., earned his first All-OVC honor in 2019 after helping the JSU offensive line pave the way for the second-best offense in the OVC. Shaddix and his teammates up front cleared a path for 5,033 yards of total offense and 296 passing yards per game – 13^th-most in the nation. 
 
Coleman, a sophomore from Atlanta, grabbed his first All-OVC honor as one of the OVC's top pass rushers. He created havoc for opposing quarterbacks in his second season in Jacksonville, leading JSU with five sacks and 10.5 tackles for a loss. His five sacks tallied a total loss of 31 yards, while he also picked up a team-best 28 quarterback hurries, broke up a pair of passes and forced a fumble. He totaled 59 tackles, tied with Bridges for fourth on the team.
 
A sophomore from Thomasville, Ala., Woodard had a breakout season in his first season starting in the middle for JSU. He led the Gamecocks and was in the top five in the OVC in tackles with 96, while also tallying seven tackles for a loss and assisting on a sack. He recorded an interception, broke up four passes and recovered a fumble for the Gamecocks in 2019.
 
Williams grabbed second-team honors for the second-straight season after finishing third on the team in tackles. The Valley, Ala., native amassed 66 tackles from the safety position, including eight in his opponents' backfields. He led JSU with three interceptions, while forcing a fumble and recovering two of them.
 
Stepherson had a productive first season on the field for the Gamecocks to earn his spot on the league's All-Newcomer squad. The junior from Jacksonville, Fla., was third on the team in both receptions with 36 and in receiving yards with 479. His six touchdown catches were second on the squad and bolstered against Eastern Kentucky in the season's final week, when he became just the sixth player in school history to catch three touchdown passes in a single game.