Cullowhee, N.C. – Western Carolina landed two defensive players among the preseason All-Southern Conference selections released on Wednesday afternoon by the league office. Junior rush end Jayden Pauling garnered a first-team All-SoCon preseason selection and senior linebacker Ty Harris was named to the second team by the league's head coaches.
 
Western Carolina, which played three nonconference road games in the fall semester – two coming against nationally-ranked FBS opponents – was picked to finish ninth in the nine-team league race in both the head coaches and media polls also unveiled Wednesday.
 
Pauling, who was sidelined in the fall portion of the 2020-21 schedule due to injury, is coming off a second-team All-Southern Conference season in 2019 which also saw him collect an honorable mention Sophomore All-America team nod from HERO Sports. Starting seven of his 12 games including six-straight to end the season, the Raleigh, N.C., product and transfer from Louisburg College finished seventh on the team in total tackles in 2019 with 51 but led the Catamounts with 11.0 tackles for loss, tied for the fourth-most in the SoCon.
 
Pauling also finished last season as the NCAA statistical champion with a SoCon-best five forced fumbles, three coming in one game that earned him SoCon Defensive Player of the Week accolades. He finished as the league's top defender in November, posting 22 tackles with 5.5 TFLs including four sacks and four forced fumbles in the month.
 
Harris started all 12 games in 2019, finishing the year fourth in the SoCon with an average of 8.8 tackles per game and a team-best 109 total hits with 7.0 tackles for loss in earning second-team All-SoCon plaudits from the league's voting media. Like Pauling, Harris earned SoCon Defensive Player of the Week laurels in 2019 coming after his 11-tackle performance in keying WCU's overtime win over ETSU.
 
Entering play this spring, Harris has 36 career games under his belt with 226 total tackles, averaging 6.3 tackles per game in his career. In the fall, he tallied 20 tackles including 11 at nationally-ranked Liberty where he also collected his third career sack.
 
Eight of the nine SoCon teams put players on the preseason all-conference teams with each of those eight having at least one first-team selection. VMI quarterback Reece Udinski and LB Willie Eubanks III from The Citadel were dubbed the preseason offensive and defensive players of the year by the coaches.
 
South Carolina Upstate rivals Wofford and Furman swapped the top two preseason positions in the pair of polls unveiled on Wednesday by the conference office. The Terriers collected five first-place votes from the league's head coaches, two more than Furman which was pegged second with three votes in the poll. Furman edged Wofford in the media tabulations for the top two spots.
 
Chattanooga was selected third by both as the polls nearly mirrored each other after the top two positions as the Mocs collected one first-place vote from the coaches. The Citadel was tagged fourth in the pair of prognostications, garnering three first-place votes in the media poll. Rounding out the poll, Samford was picked fifth followed by Mercer and VMI – tied for sixth in the coaches, sixth and seventh in the media, with ETSU and WCU rounding out the pecking order.
 
In preparation for the eight-game SoCon schedule this spring, the Catamounts welcomed five mid-semester transfers to campus in mid-January including a pair of quarterbacks in Ryan Glover, a graduate transfer from Penn, and junior college transfer Carlos Davis (East Mississippi CC). WCU also added defensive back Rod Gattison (Georgia Military College) and defensive end Timothy Jamison (Hutchinson CC) during the early signing period, with WR/TE Trae Churn (South Carolina State) transferring in on the offensive side of the football.
 
Western Carolina (0-3) officially opens its spring 2021 preseason practices on Friday, Jan. 22 with the first of two helmet-only sessions as a part of the acclimation ramp-up period that also includes a pair of practices in helmet and shoulder pads before going fully-padded. The Catamounts open their conference schedule on Saturday, Feb., 20 in the first of back-to-back road games, traveling to Greenville, S.C., to face the Furman Paladins.
 
Kickoff times for WCU's four home dates as well as the four road games will be released in the coming weeks. Each SoCon game this spring is slated to be available on ESPN+ (paid subscription required) or ESPN3 (cable/satellite subscription required), with audio through the Catamount Sports Network and online at CatamountSports.com.
 
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