Thursday, February 15, 2018

The MVP



It's the coaches who will choose all the winners of the awards at this weekend's banquet celebrating the 2017 season.

But I don't think it's going to be much of a race for the Sid Luckman Most Valuable Player Award. Graduating senior QB Anders Hill should have that honor all wrapped up.

If stats were the only factor in the decision, Hill would come a close second to rising junior WR Josh Wainwright who broke Columbia's 35-year old single season receiving yards record.

But since this was an historic 8-2 winning season, you have to look at the huge step forward Hill took as a team leader in tight win after tight win.

I wrote in the preseason that 2017 was really mostly on Hill's shoulders. The result was the best season in more than 20 years.

Hill started 18 games in his Columbia career and finished with an 11-7 record.  That's a .611 winning percentage for a program that went 2-20 in the 22 games he didn't start in his four year career.

Case closed.

5 comments:

oldlion said...

I just put two and two together and found out that Josh’s dad is a former justice of the Texas Supreme Court with an excellent reputation who is now a partner at a major law firm and one of the top appellate lawyers in Texas. That’s some family: all the intellect and athletic ability.

Big Dawg said...

Now if only his dad was a Lion. Perfect.

Re MVP, Josh is tops. But it takes 2 to complete a pass, and excellence on the originating end as well. So I go with Hill.

Tod Howard Hawks, Columbia College, Class of 1966 said...

Who do you think will be the starting QB for the Lions this coming Fall, and why?

I think the answer to this question will be the key to Columbia football having another successful season in 2018.

oldlion said...

Jake, what happened with Coaches Poppe and Santos?

Tod Howard Hawks, Columbia College, Class of 1966 said...

I too am interested in how and why Coach Bagnoli would let Coach Poppe (head of recruiting for Columbia, if I'm not mistaken) flip back to Harvard.

Any information yet?