N.U.'s Martinez on national awards watch list

LINCOLN, Neb. — – Husker quarterback Adrian Martinez earned preseason recognition on Monday morning, as he was named to the Maxwell Award watch list.

The Maxwell Award has been presented to the College Player of the Year since 1937 and is named in honor of Robert "Tiny" Maxwell, a former standout at Swarthmore College and a renowned sports writer and football official.

Martinez, who makes his third straight appearance on the Maxwell Award watch list, comes off a shortened 2020 season where he completed 71.5 percent of his passes for 1,055 yards and four TDs, while rushing for a team-high 521 yards and seven scores. Martinez became the third player in program history to lead Nebraska in both rushing and passing in the same season and was the fourth Husker quarterback to lead NU in rushing. His 71.5 completion percentage ranked fifth in Big Ten history and was the fourth-best mark in a Big Ten Conference season.

Martinez, who set NU's single-game completion percentage record by completing 18-of-20 passes against Iowa, finished his junior year by totaling 412 yards of total offense in the win over Rutgers. In that game, he completed 24-of-28 passes for 255 yards and one touchdown, and he rushed a career-high 23 times for a career-high 157 yards and two scores.

He enters the 2021 season with 13 school records, including NU's career record for games with at least 400 yards of total offense (five).

Martinez is bidding to be the Huskers' fifth Maxwell Award winner, along with Mike Rozier (1983), Tommie Frazier (1995), Eric Crouch (2001) and Ndamukong Suh (2009).

The Maxwell Watch List is the first of 16 award watch lists over the next two weeks by the National College Football Awards Association.