App State running back Nate Noel has been named to the watch list for the 2023 Maxwell Award, which recognizes the most outstanding player in college football.

Every year since 2015, App State’s first season as a bowl-eligible FBS program, the Mountaineers have had at least one standout performer on the Maxwell Award watch list.

Through 33 career games, Noel has rushed for 2,240 yards and 13 touchdowns while averaging 6.1 yards per carry. He led the Sun Belt with 1,126 rushing yards in 2021 before rushing for 604 yards in just nine games during an injury-impacted 2022 season in which he averaged 6.9 yards per carry.

Noel opened the season with 116 yards and two touchdowns on 14 attempts against North Carolina and closed the year with 171 yards and three touchdowns on just 12 attempts against Georgia Southern — that performance ranked as the second-most rushing yards by an App State player with fewer than 15 carries, after only Marcus Cox’s 192 yards on 14 carries against South Alabama in 2015.

The Maxwell Award has been presented to the national college player of the year since 1937 and is named in honor of Robert “Tiny” Maxwell, a former standout at the Swarthmore College and a renowned sports writer and football official.

App State begins fall practice Aug. 4 and will open the season at home against Gardner-Webb on Sept. 2.