No team enters the 2022 college football season with more offensive star power than Ohio State, and the preseason watch list for the Maxwell Award reflects that.
Ohio State is the only school with three players on the Maxwell Award’s 85-man preseason watch list as C.J. Stroud, TreVeyon Henderson and Jaxon Smith-Njigba are all among the preseason nominees for the award, which honors college football’s most outstanding player.
Stroud was a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award in 2021, while Henderson became the only true freshman on last year’s Maxwell Award watch list when he was a midseason addition to the list. Both of them are expected to be among the nation’s best players at their positions this year, as is Smith-Njigba, who emerged as college football’s best receiver with his record-setting play down the stretch of last season, highlighted by a 15-catch, 347-yard performance in the Rose Bowl.
The Maxwell Award watch list is the first of 16 preseason watch lists for college football awards that will be released by the National College Football Awards Association over the next two weeks.
Our first watch list of the preseason is out, for the Maxwell Award, featuring 85 standout returning players. Follow along for the next two weeks as we roll out 16 watch lists: https://t.co/LzCmc1G87K pic.twitter.com/QpznanZ2Y0
— NCFAA (@ncfaa) July 18, 2022
