Little Rock, Ark. – West Liberty University's Cam Rice was among 48 NCAA Division II athletes named as nominees for the 2023 Cliff Harris Award on Wednesday afternoon. The award recognizes the nation's top small college defensive player of the year, and for the first time is split among NCAA Division II, Division III, and NAIA as they will each be selecting their own honorees. The recipient of DII's winner will be announced December 28.

This season Rice was a Harlon Hill Trophy nominee, named All-Super Region 1 Second Team (D2CCA) and All-MEC First Team, earned three MEC Defensive Player of the Week accolades, and was once named the D2Football.com National Defensive Player of the Week. While totaling 58.0 tackles on the year he also made his presence known in the backfield all season long as he notched 23.5 tackles-for-loss and 9.0 sacks. In addition, he forced four fumbles, blocked two kicks, and intercepted two passes, returning both picks for touchdowns in the season finale against Wheeling.

With the NCAA Division II season now concluded, he ended the year ranked first nationally in tackles-for-loss per game (2.4), third in total tackles-for-loss, tied for fourth in total forced fumbles, tied for fifth in forced fumbles per game (0.40), tied for tenth in sacks per game (0.90), tied for 16^th in blocked kicks, and tied for 20th in the country in total sacks. He posted career-highs of 10.0 tackles, 4.5 tackles-for-loss (three times), and 3.0 sacks during the year.