The Maxwell Football Club announced its annual preseason watch lists Tuesday for both the Maxwell and Bednarik awards -- which go to the nation’s top overall player and defensive player, respectively -- and the Big Ten fared pretty well.
Every team boasted at least one candidate on one of the lists, as 28 total players -- 12 on offense, 16 on defense -- made the early cut.
Obviously, early watch lists like these need to be taken with a grain of salt. Arizona’s Scooby Wright wasn’t on the watch list in 2014 and came away with Bednarik, and Notre Dame’s Manti Te'o was left off the 2012 Maxwell watch list before winning that award.