FORT COLLINS — Colorado State senior punter Hayden Hunt, the runner-up in voting for the Ray Guy Award a year ago, is a political science major considering law school and a career as an attorney specializing in water rights issues.
“A couple of years ago, I started looking at Chapman University in L.A.,” he said this week. “Their dean appeared in front of the Supreme Court more than any other man in U.S. history. But lately, I haven’t been thinking that much about law school. I’ve been focusing on football more.”
That’s because if Hunt finishes strong, he’ll almost certainly get a look from an NFL team, and perhaps even be drafted.
Hunt averaged 46.0 yards per punt in 2015, fifth best in the country, and will take a 44.5-yard average into Saturday’s Border War against Wyoming at Hughes Stadium. He ranks “only” 19th nationally in 2016, but his effectiveness this season passes the eye test. CSU coach Mike Bobo repeatedly has called Hunt a “weapon,” and he has put nine of his 17 punts this season inside the 20. That kind of selflessness is a counter for anyone trying to discount his average as boosted by high-altitude conditions. Hunt averaged 45.0 yards at Minnesota, elevation 841 feet, last week.
“Numbers are different, but I think I’m significantly a better punter this year than I was last year,” Hunt said. “I think if you watch my whole punting career, every year it gets better. Last year, I was really proud of it, but this year, I’m a lot more consistent and just overall better.”
Hunt’s accountant father, Andrew, meticulously tracks net-yardage punting stats for Hayden and other national punters, and has gotten on his son in the past when he doesn’t rank high enough there. But he has backed off a bit this year.
“He told me not to worry about the numbers as much,” Hayden said. “He said, ‘When it comes down to it, you need to become better as a punter.’ He’s more baseball background, and he said that when you start focusing on the numbers, you strike out more. He just told me to keep hitting them like I’m hitting them and things will work out. And as long as I keep setting up the team well, it works.”
At Minnesota, Hunt also was 1-for-1 passing, completing a throw over the middle for 29 yards to Braylin Scott off a fake punt.
Hunt’s additional duty is to provide light-hearted relief for the Rams, as the target of barbed teasing about being a punter and while dishing it out. Former CSU coach Jim McElwain, as he did with most kickers, avoided referring to him by name — he was “punt guy” or “punter guy” — and put rubber ducks in the hot tub for Hunt. His teammates present a “Hang Time Tuesday” award each week to the punter with the best hang time at the day’s practice. It’s not much of a contest. Hunt is the only punter on the Rams’ roster.
“He’s locked in,” Bobo said of Hunt at practice. “But you hear him say stuff and he’s got a sense of humor. He’s serious about what our special teams do, not just punt, which I love. He can answer every question in there about kickoff, kickoff return, punt return — and he’s the punter. I like guys that have a personality and joke with the guys and are not afraid to call guys out. The problem is, he’s a punter and sometimes guys don’t take him serious.”
A former baseball star at Long Beach Polytechnic High, Hunt hoped to also handle the placekicking duties in college, but has settled for just punting. “I do miss putting points on the board directly,” he said. “Going back to poli sci, that’s soft money versus hard money, and I do miss putting hard points on the board,. compared to punting as soft points.”
He ended up in Fort Collins after assistant coach Tim Skipper, who had been recruiting him, moved from Fresno State to join McElwain’s Colorado State staff and stayed after Hunt as a recruited walk-on. Hunt, awarded a scholarship early in his stay at CSU, still holds a grudge against Mike MacIntyre, then at San Jose State, because Hunt says MacIntyre told him he wasn’t good enough to join the Spartans program.
“I try to keep the team more outgoing,” Hunt said of his role. “I’m the comic relief for the defense. Their only All-American is a punter. At the same time they love it, letting the defense have 80, 90 yards to give up before breaking. They can bend 90 yards instead of bending 50.”
As a fifth-year senior, he is especially friends with the older defensive starters. “I have a lot of fun with them, messing with them,” he said. “I’ll come off the field and say, ‘I did my job. I hit a 50-yard fair catch and jogged off the field.'”
Utah’s Tom Hackett, an Australian who punted with a “rollout,” or rugby type style, won the Ray Guy Award the last two seasons. This year, another Australian rugby-style Utah punter, sophomore Mitch Wishnowsky, ranks first nationally with an astounding 52.1-yard average. Two others — Ohio State’s Cameron Johnson (50.6) and Texas’ Michael Dickson (50.4) — also are averaging more than 50 yards. So it might be difficult for Hunt to be one of the three Ray Guy finalists again, but much can change in the final two-thirds of the season in the specialized world of college punters.
“I think most punters, like (Oakland’s) Marquette King, those kind of guys, are going to say we are athletes,”:Hunt said. “But when you look from the outside in, it’s hard to justify that we’re athletes. It’s like saying the lefty reliever who comes in for lefty batters in a baseball game is an athlete.”
And some of those guys are 47 years old, right?
“Yeah, 47 years old with a beer gut,” Hunt said. “We’re specialists. I honestly do miss getting the base hit for the win in baseball, but I also know every little piece matters. . . When I did throw on that fake (punt), it made me feel like an athlete again. As I soon as I threw it, I went, ‘Boom,’ with a fist pump. I’m 1-for-1 and my QBR rating’s out the roof.”
He said he didn’t know the rating, then added, “I know if I would have got a touchdown, it would have been perfect.”
For the record, his efficiency rating is a gaudy 343.60.