The first-years who have already established themselves among the division's best overall players.
June 18, 2025 by Edward Stephens, Alex Rubin and Emmet Holton in Awards
Each year, Ultiworld presents our annual College Awards. Our staff evaluates the individual performances of players from throughout the season, talking to folks around college ultimate, watching film, and look at statistics, voting upon the awards to decide those to be honored. The regular season and the college Series are both considered, with extra emphasis for performances in the competitive and high-stakes environment at Nationals.
The Rookie of the Year award recognizes players who impressed in their first college ultimate seasons. That includes both freshman and true rookies. Each season, it feels like this group of players becomes more impactful; as the level of youth play and of coaching and development rise, so does the bar for the division’s best rookie. Whether they come to the college game from years of youth experience, a background in other sports, or none of the above, these players made debuts to remember in high-level college play.
- All-American First Team
- Player of the Year
- All-American Second Team
- Defensive Player of the Year Award
- Offensive Player of the Year Award
- Rookie of the Year Award
- Breakout Player of the Year Award
- Coaches of the Year Award
- Full Awards Voting Breakdown
D-I Men’s 2025 Rookie Of The Year
Nate De Morgan (Carleton)
Nate De Morgan is on the short list for most productive rookies in the history of College Nationals, with Tobias Brooks (2024), John Randolph (2018), and Claire Trop (2018). It’s no coincidence that those four are the only first-years in Ultiworld history to have made All-American teams. So, how did De Morgan land himself on Mt. Rookmore?
The answer is obviously more complex than what I’m about to write… but it boils down to the idea that the kid was just an absolute bucket, from his first outing of the regular season until CUT’s championship-winning end. Seriously, it lasted all year. De Morgan – not Player of the Year teammate Declan Miller or anybody else as the only player to make the All-Tournament Line at Florida Warm Up, Smoky Mountain Invite, and Easterns.
Called on to lead the Carleton D-line’s counterattack from the minute he arrived in Northfield, De Morgan catapulted their scoring efficiency into the stratosphere. The aim of his booming transition backhands could not have been truer, nor their timing more opportunistic. By the business end of Nationals, every team knew the throw was coming, and no one could do anything to stop it. And it didn’t seem to matter whether or not he was dealing in transition situations: De Morgan was CUT’s regular crossover to the O-line, and he was just as effective against ready sets. He found his way to the end zone at a good clip, too, proving to be one of the division’s slipperiest cutters despite his lack of previous college experience. The stat line he posted at Nationals was a preposterous 10G/20A/5T. In other words: absolute bucket.
Throw in the heavy workload1, the heads-up blocks, the way he read discs and held onto catches under pressure, and the gobsmacking off-hand hammers, and it all made what was already the easiest award vote of the year even easier.
The only question left: What’s next?
– Edward Stephens
First Runner-Up
Sam Grossberg (Georgia Tech)
If you haven’t yet seen it, please pause to consider this video. While I am typically a supporter of the sub-three-minute highlight reel, Grossberg’s Rookie of the Year video takes nearly fifteen minutes to tell the story of one of the best first-year performances seen in a generation, and it’s worth every minute. Though Georgia Tech did not make Nationals, it’s impossible to tell the story of the 2025 season without them, and it’s impossible to tell the story of Georgia Tech without Sam Grossberg. A powerful and precise thrower, a speedy athlete with a clear sense of timing, and a dedicated leader even in his first year, there is a good chance we see Grossberg’s name come up again on these awards podiums in future seasons.
– Alex Rubin
Second Runner-Up
Cedar Hines (Western Washington)
As highly touted as anyone in this year’s mind-bogglingly deep rookie class, Hines entered college with the shine of a summer as the standout of the U20 national team and the leading goal scorer for a strong Sockeye Club Nationals appearance. If there were any doubts as to whether the DIRT first year would live up to the hype, an eye-popping 11-goal, 20-assist, 5-block Nationals box score as the dynamic duo counterpart to Elijah Diamond put them to rest. He performed with all the same poise and athleticism that his pre-college career had hinted at, helping to lead Western Washington to their first nationals appearance in a decade, and first quarterfinals appearance in program history.
– Emmet Holton
De Morgan played 401 points for CUT in 2025, thirty more than the next highest player, Daniel Chen ↩
