Texas A&M football: Spring MVPs announced and one comes as a surprise
By Jeff Shull
Texas A&M football handed out some awards at halftime of the spring game, the offensive MVP was not a name you might have expected.
The Aggies have finished their spring offseason program and we won’t get a taste of Texas A&M football until fall camp begins in a few months (sigh). Going into this spring, head coach Jimbo Fisher had a plethora of roster questions to answer compared to last season, when the biggest and really the only important question he had to answer was who would be the starting quarterback.
No such question lingers this year. Kellen Mond is the guy and will be so long as he’s healthy. However, as many as 11 starters are gone from the 2018 team that finished 9-4. Who is going to replace them?
Some of the answers could come by way of the awards given out at halftime of the Maroon And White Game. The offensive and defensive MVPs of the spring were announced, with one familiar name and another you may be surprised to learn.
Justin Madubuike is no stranger to the spring Defensive MVP award. He has literally won the thing three years in a row now. He started all of last season, but that doesn’t appear to have made him any less hungry to be better. He could be one of the best players on defense this season and is a candidate for the preseason All conference and maybe even the All American teams.
The more surprising of the two selections was Ryan McCollum. He came to the Aggies as a 3-star center in the 2016 class but has found a spot in the rotation. He started at guard when Jared Hocker got hurt last year and spent some time at center as well. He has been lining up at center with the first team all spring. He was always a candidate to start at center, but for him to shine this way in Erik McCoy’s absence has to be encouraging to the coaching staff.
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Other players to win awards: Braden Mann and Max Wright were Special Teams MVP, Colton Prater was Most Improved on offense, and Bobby Brown, Devin Morris and Jayden Peevy were Most Improved on defense.