Marvin Harrison Jr. and Tommy Eichenberg are each up for one of college football’s top individual awards after their excellent starts to the 2022 season.
Ohio State wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. is one of 13 players who was added Wednesday to the watch list for the Maxwell Award, which honors college football’s most outstanding player, while Tommy Eichenberg was one of 10 midseason additions to the watch list for the Bednarik Award, which honors the nation’s top defensive player.
The Maxwell Football Club announced the final watch list additions for the 86th Maxwell Award and the 28th Chuck Bednarik Award.
— Maxwell Football (@MaxwellFootball) October 12, 2022
For the full release: https://t.co/s19GR3pASc pic.twitter.com/3chIcnc2so
Harrison joins the Maxwell Award watch list after catching nine touchdown passes – the most of any player in the Football Bowl Subdivision – in Ohio State’s first six games. In total, Harrison has caught 31 passes for 536 receiving yards, the 18th-most in the FBS.
He joins Ohio State’s three preseason nominees – C.J. Stroud, TreVeyon Henderson and Jaxon Smith-Njigba – on the Maxwell Award watch list. While Smith-Njigba’s candidacy for the award was ruined by a hamstring injury that sidelined him for most of the first half of the season, and Henderson also had an injury-plagued first half of the year, Stroud is the likely frontrunner for the Maxwell Award after his spectacular first half of the season in which he completed 70.6 percent of his passes for 1,737 yards and an FBS-most 24 touchdowns with only three interceptions.
Eichenberg emerged as a Bednarik Award candidate by recording 50 total tackles, including six tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks, in Ohio State’s first six games of the season. Eichenberg, who has been graded by Pro Football Focus as the 12th-best linebacker (who has played at least 100 snaps) in the FBS this season, joins preseason nominees Zach Harrison and Ronnie Hickman on the Bednarik watch list – and stands out as the top candidate among them to actually be in contention for the award.
Semifinalists for both the Maxwell and Bednarik Awards will be announced on Nov. 1.
