It is early July and that means it is preseason award watch list time in college football. After a 10-win season in 2015 and plenty of star talent returning to the Badgers, one wouldn’t be surprised to see UW well represented.
Such was the case on the first day of award watch lists being announced on Tuesday, as both linebacker Vince Biegel and running back Corey Clement were named to watch lists.
Biegel was named to the Bednarik Award watch list along with 89 other players. The award is given to the best defensive player in college football, and has never been won by a Badger player since its inception in 1995.
He finished last season in the shadow of Joe Schobert, the Big Ten’s Linebacker of the Year, but was far from a slouch on the stat sheet himself. Biegel racked up 66 tackles, 14.0 tackles for loss and 8.0 sacks last season.
Those numbers all led Biegel to be named All-Big Ten third team in 2015.
Clement was named as one of 90 players on the Maxwell Award watch list, an annual award given out to the best offensive player in college football. The only Maxwell Award winner from Wisconsin was Ron Dayne back in 1999.
This past season was a near throw away thanks to a combination of a sports hernia and a suspension due to a fight in his apartment building. However, Clement comes in to his final season as a Badger with 1,717 yards and averaging 6.5 yards per carry for his career.
He’ll be looking to start up a new streak of 1,000-yard running backs that was snapped for the first time since 2004 last season.
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