Cole Murphy is aiming to win the Heisman Trophy of holding.

The Rutgers redshirt senior is in the thick of a spirited, social media-driven campaign promoting his candidacy for this year’s “Peter Mortell Holder of the Year Award.” The semi-official award was created by its namesake, a former Minnesota punter who also handled holding duties on extra points and field goals. Mortell gave the award to himself the first year and managed to generate national attention culminating with an “acceptance speech” video package for ESPN’s annual college football awards show.

The Mortell Award is now in its fifth year. Each year’s recipient is selected by Mortell’s HOTY Foundation, which then assists the winner in raising money for the charity of his choosing.

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NJ Advance Media caught up with Murphy, a former walk-on from Kansas who was awarded a scholarship last season, to discuss his Mortell candidacy, how he was Gardner Minshew before Gardner Minshew and the art of post-kick celebrations in this week’s Rutgers Q&A:

How did this award get on your radar?

"I didn’t start picking up on it until after Harte came here. Andrew Harte was a kicker from Minnesota, which is where the award started with Pete Mortell coming from there. He started telling me, 'Hey, once you start actually holding’ - because I was still recovering from an ACL tear when he first got here - ‘Once you start recovering, you should really start to push for that.’

“So I’ve known about it for two years. Last year, obviously, I was a little timid up. I’m coming back, I didn’t want to draw too much attention to to myself or the the unit at that point, because I was unknown territory for me starting in the Big Ten. But now, I feel pretty confident with it. And we’re 12-of-12 in terms of kicks overall.”

These Angelic hands will be a @netflix original if @espn doesn’t jump on this https://t.co/NIE7180EyD — Cole H. Murphy (@Cole_Murphy_10) September 19, 2019

How do you come up with all the social media stuff?

"I’m a pretty creative guy. I think it’s pretty funny. People think it’s a joke, obviously, when you first tell them about the whole day of the year, but there’s actually like a lot that goes into it. When you think about being able to put the ball down, and not putting too much pressure on it, getting the laces out and all, under the ideal time of 1.23 seconds. When you’re able to do that, that’s pretty exciting.

“In terms of the creativity, it’s just kind of like my personality when it comes to things. A lot of my social media is kind of goofy. Before I got here, I used to do these these [sideburns] that were like red and blue, because my high school colors were red, white, and blue. So I had one one sideburn that was dyed all red, one that was dyed all blue. Had guys dressing up as me as as Halloween costumes. Just doing stuff out of the ordinary. I wear some jorts, I’m a big jorts fan. I know Gardner Minshew (the Jacksonville Jaguars’ rookie quarterback), he’s getting a lot of attention (for zany outfits and facial hair). But I’ve been doing that stuff since middle school.”

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When did you start holding?

“I did it all through high school. In middle school I couldn’t hold because I was actually the long snapper. So once I got into high school and I was the quarterback, it went hand-in-hand. It was kind of the status quo.”

How much work went into the celebration the cameras caught this past weekend?

“We came up with that on that day. And there’s some stuff that’s coming into play this week. If we get an opportunity to go out there, we’ve got a pretty good one that’s coming out. You’ve got to be so precise with it so you don’t catch a penalty. It’s got to be just brief enough, but just long enough to catch people’s attention. That was a good one. We’ve got some other ones. We had won the first game, it went kind of unnoticed. Justin was stuffing a mortar in, and right when the cannon went off, I’m ducked. That was one of the first ones, but we just come up with some funny stuff.”

BTN

You ever tell the offense they had better score points so you have the reps to push for the Mortell?

“The position group that I’m officially assigned to is receivers, so I’m telling them, ‘Hey, you guys got to produce. I want to be out there. So be a little selfish in terms of your own production and score real quick so I can get out there and do some celebrations with these guys.'”

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James Kratch may be reached at jkratch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JamesKratch. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.