Ty Johnson and Taivon Jacobs were both added to new preseason award watch lists on Thursday.
Johnson is on the Paul Hornung Award watch list. That award is given annually to the most versatile player in college football. Will Likely was the most recent Terp to make the list, and it’s easy to see why Johnson is on it now. He ran for 875 yards on 137 attempts in 2017, good for a 6.4 yards-per-carry average. He added one score on a kick return and a solid average of 24.3 yards per return. Johnson hasn’t caught passes too often in his career, but has been successful when he gets the ball through the air too. He averaged 12 yards per reception in 2017, but only had five catches. Steady increases in each category could make him a contender for the award.
The senior has also joined the watch lists for the Doak Walker Award, given to the nation’s best running back, and the Maxwell Award, given to the best player regardless of position.
Jacobs is a more unproven quantity, but he still holds an important position as Maryland’s elder statesmen at wide receiver. He’s healthy for the second season in a row, something the oft-injured wideout hasn’t been able to say previously in his college career. Last season he had 553 yards on 43 catches, and is Maryland’s most experienced receiver by a wide margin entering 2018.
He's on the Wuerfful Trophy watch list. What’s that? From a Maryland release:
The Wuerffel Trophy is known as “College Football’s Premier Award for Community Service.” Named after 1996 Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Danny Wuerffel, the Wuerffel Trophy is awarded to the FBS player that best combines exemplary community service with athletic and academic achievement.
Also: punter Wade Lees was named to the Ray Guy Award watch list on Wednesday.
So there’s your latest in Maryland awards news. Stay tuned for more.
In other news
I detailed Maryland football’s weird debut season in the Big Ten.
Here’s the new Maryland Hall of Fame class.
Jared explains why Maryland’s upperclassman linebackers are gonna be super important this season.
The top recruit in the Class of 2020 visited College Park Thursday.
On the way to UMD #terps
— Bryan Bresee (@bryan_bresee) July 26, 2018
Over at SB Nation, Matt Brown wrote about how conferences should start caring more about fans than they do about TV networks. Given that the Big Ten added Maryland and Rutgers for mostly TV reasons, this is worth a read.
Lastly, some excellent highlights: