FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 22, 2006

Barbre Named First Team Preseason All-American By D2football.com


JOPLIN, Mo. -- Senior offensive lineman Allen Barbre (Granby, Mo./East Newton) has been named to his second preseason All-American team as D2football.com listed him as a preseason first teamer. Don Hansen's Football Gazette had listed Barbre among its All-Americans earlier in the month.

Barbre, 6-foot-4 and 296 pounds, started at left tackle in all 10 games in 2005 and helped MSSU to an average of 376.9 total offensive yards per game. The Lions averaged 284.4 passing yards per game, finishing atop the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association and ranking 10th in NCAA Division II.

A 2005 first-team All-MIAA selection and All-Region selection, Barbre was named the team's offensive lineman of the week five times in 10 weeks last season and he won the team's Dudley Stegge Award as the Lions' offensive lineman of the year.

Barbre also got a rare chance at putting points on the board himself, scoring on a 4-yard touchdown run for the first TD in MSSU's 41-17 defeat of Truman State on Oct. 1. That play came as a tribute to John Ware, a former offensive lineman and the team's then-head coach who had died suddenly just four days prior.

Barbre finished the 2005 season having made 19 consecutive starts at left tackle. He has played in 31 career games as a Lion, starting 25 times.

Barbre and the Lions open up the 2006 season at home against Ouachita Baptist on September 2 at 6 p.m. in Hughes Stadium.