Pair of football Bulldogs placed on Maxwell Award Watch List

MSU one of just four SEC teams to have multiple players on the list.

A pair of Mississippi State Bulldogs are in the running for an award that honors the most outstanding player in college football. New Mississippi State quarterback K.J. Costello, along with running back Kylin Hill, have been placed on the Maxwell Award Watch List, it was announced on Friday. Here are the details, courtesy of Mississippi State media relations:

Mississippi State preseason All-American senior running back Kylin Hill and graduate transfer senior quarterback K.J. Costello were named to the 2020 Maxwell Award Watch List on Friday. The honor is presented annually to the most outstanding player in college football.

MSU is one of four SEC schools with multiple student-athletes on the list, joining Alabama, LSU and Auburn.

Behind an SEC-best eight 100-yard rushing games, Hill led the league in rushing yards during the 2019 regular season and finished the year with 1,350. He found the end zone on the ground 10 times and finished as one of just eight Power 5 running backs with 1,300-plus rushing yards and 10-plus rushing touchdowns. Hill was named First Team All-SEC by The Associated Press in 2019. Hill also earned a spot on the Fall SEC Academic Honor Roll and became the SEC running back to earn both honors in the same season since 2016. He also won the Conerly Trophy last December for the best football student-athlete in the state of Mississippi. It was the second-straight year and fifth time in the last seven years that a Bulldog took home the Conerly Trophy.

Costello was a two-time captain at Stanford who started 25 games over the course of three seasons, prior to arriving in Starkville. He has gone 495-of-791 passing for 6,151 yards and 49 touchdowns during his career. In 2018, Costello earned second-team All-Pac-12 honors when he started all 13 games and passed for 3,540 yards, the second-highest single-season total in team history. He completed 65.1 percent of his passes with 29 touchdowns and led the Pac-12 in both pass efficiency (155) and yards per attempt (8.57).