Tory Taylor named 2023 Ray Guy Award winner

Iowa punter Tory Taylor has been officially named the 2023 Ray Guy Award winner, given to the best punter in the nation. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who watched the Hawkeyes this season. Iowa punted the football more than anybody in the country and by a substantial margin. But Taylor certainly didn’t disappoint when he was booming punts all season long.

He’s currently just 20 yards away from breaking the NCAA single-season punting yardage record, which is 85 years old. The current record stands at 4,138 yards and was set by the late Johnny Pingel back in 1938–when he played for Michigan State.

Taylor averaged 47.9 yards per punt this year, ranking him third in the nation in that stat category. His longest punt this season was a 67 yarder, and he also managed to pin the opponent inside the 20-yard line 30 times.

The Australian native punted 86 times this year–11 more times than any other player in the nation. Taylor racked up 4,119 total punting yards, 752 more than anybody else. Not only that, he racked up 1,014 more yards punting than Iowa’s offense gained all year. Taylor somehow managed to punt for more yards than 33 offenses across college football this year.

Taylor has been a busy man for his entire career for the Hawkeyes. He’s kicked 80 or more punts in each of the last three seasons for Iowa. Each of those seasons, he averaged over 45 yards per punt. The longest punt he’s boomed in his entire career was a 70-yarder he launched in 2022. The lowest average he’s recorded in his entire college football career came in 2020, when he was a freshman, averaging 44.1 yards per punt.

Tory Taylor answers questions on winning the Ray Guy Award

What does winning the prestigious award mean to the Australian?

“It’s really just an absolute honor. A lot of Australians have kind of won this in the past and heading into this season I felt like I was probably close in the last couple of years, but unfortunately didn’t get the result. But yeah, this year, just really kind of went out there and the biggest thing to me was just trying to be who I am. And coach does a really good job of that for all of the guys on the team. Really appreciate the coaching staff and the players. Like I said, this award means a lot. Just really glad it’s staying home in Australia, because that’s really where it belongs,” Taylor said.

“Just to win this award, it’s such an achievement for me and my family. This one really goes to everyone. I know I’m the one that is gonna receive the award from an individual standpoint, but there’s a lot more that goes into it,” Taylor noted.

When did Tory Taylor realize that he was among the nation’s elite at his position? “Well, that’s a good question. I think just probably my ability to I guess, flip the field, in general. But then once we get in that minus 45 zone. You know I’ve talked to coach a lot about that and that’s just kind of my money shot. So, yeah, it’s just one of those things once it gets to midfield, that’s when my confidence grows and really where I separate myself. Because, there’s a lot of guys out there that’ve got big legs but I feel like what I do better is just being able to pin opponents deep and win the field position battle in general,” the Australian said.

Taylor will get his chance to make even more history on January 1st. The Iowa Hawkeyes will face off against the Tennessee Volunteers at 1:00 PM EST. That game will be nationally televised on ABC.