ANNAPOLIS, Md.—Navy senior punter Riley Riethman has been named a First-Team Academic All-American by College Sports Communicators it was announced on Tuesday.

Riethman is the 12th player in school history to be named a First-Team Academic All-American by CSC and the first since slot back Travis Brannan in 2019.

Riethman, who has a 3.93 grade-point average while majoring in aerospace engineering, finished his career as the best punter in school history. His 44.3 career punting average broke the record held by John Skaggs (2000-03) by 1.9 yards, while his 45.7 season average in 2024 broke his own school record of 44.8 set last year. The 45.7 mark also tied for the fifth-best average in the FBS this year.

Riethman helped lead Navy to a 10-3 season in 2024 with victories over Air Force and Army to win the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy and a victory over Oklahoma in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl.

Riethman, whose service assignment is Navy pilot, is currently working on a capstone project that has him building a drone capable of withstanding arctic temperatures that has infrared sensors to detect polar bears and their dens.

The goal of his project is to increase road efficiency in the Arctic, because when they are building roads and run into a polar bear den, they must divert the road, which is very costly. This will allow them to identify where the bears are so they can plan ahead.

Last year, Riethman did wind tunnel testing that helped identify the best configuration for a football to fly in order to optimize height and distance for punting. Additionally, he completed an internship at Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California where he studied the effects of hypervelocity impacts on aerospace structures to simulate what a hypersonic missile could do to a plane or other missile.

In the summer of 2024, Riethman participated in summer training that saw he, and six other midshipmen, immerse themselves in Nepalese culture.

As the logistics officer, he was responsible for travel planning for a 7,300-mile journey, helping build a travel itinerary for the 3-week trekking adventure and interacting with a wide variety of people from the U.S. Ambassador to Nepal to working with orphans in Kathmandu.

He led his peers through challenging hikes with over 3,000 feet of elevation gain per day, during the monsoon season, often covered in leeches.