Hayden Hunt's unlikely journey to elite CSU punter

Hayden Hunt never planned to be a punter, let alone one of the best in the country.

He was a baseball player at Long Beach Poly High School in Southern California, kicking on the side for the school’s powerhouse football program. He went to football practice on special-teams days and joined the team for games, spending most of the fall perfecting his skills as a right-fielder and leadoff hitter.

He was a kicker, not a punter. Good enough to earn all-region honors from ESPN L.A. as a senior in 2011 and an invitation to join CSU’s football program as a preferred walk-on the following fall.

He was supposed to come in and compete with Jared Roberts, who graduated last year as the most accurate field-goal kicker in school history and No. 3 on the all-time scoring list with 270 points.

Hunt wasn’t going to beat out Roberts, and he wasn’t content to be his backup.

He wanted to play, and the only way he was going to do that, special-teams coordinator Jeff Hammerschmidt told him, was if he learned how to punt.

So that’s what Hunt did, working with former NFL kicker Michael Husted to learn the nuances of punting.

“It was frustrating,” Hunt said earlier this week. “I didn’t want to do it; I wanted to quit. It was really hard, but I knew I had some goals in mind, and I really wanted to be a great punter.”

Hunt, now a junior, has reached that level. He was named one of three finalists for the Ray Guy Award, given annually to the top college punter in the nation. He’s averaging 46.3 yards a punt, fifth nationally at the Football Bowl Subdivision level. He’s put 21 of his 42 punts inside the opponents’ 20-yard line and only let one go into the end zone for a touchback. Fifteen of his punts have resulted in fair catches, helping Colorado State University to the No. 2 spot in the nation in net punting at 43.41 yards per kick, just three-hundredths of a yard behind Utah.

“He’s probably the best that I’ve ever seen,” said first-year CSU coach Mike Bobo, who was at Georgia when the Bulldogs’ Drew Butler won the Ray Guy Award in 2009.

Hunt’s punts, Bobo said, “are like JUGS guns that shoot out the balls, with how high and far he hits them. … He’s been a huge weapon for us.”

Hunt, 5-foot-11 and 220 pounds, has been the Rams’ punter since the 2012 season, when he beat out Keenan Adams, a scholarship athlete and all-state kicker and punter from Georgia, for the job. He averaged 41.9 yards a kick in 2012 and 43.8 last year, landing 14 inside the 20-yard line with four touchbacks each season.

That wasn’t good enough for Hunt. He was trying to angle kicks out of bounds, “coffin corner style,” he said, instead of kicking with a backward spin to deaden the bounce so teammates could down the ball near the opponents’ goal line. A “chip shot,” Hunt said.

It took about four to five weeks to learn, he said, and “it turned out to be one of my best attributes as a punter.”

Leg strength has never been an issue for Hunt. It’s the technique he needed to perfect.

He aims for hang time in the 4.8- to 5.0-second range that he said is what NFL punters strive for on every punt. He punts 100 to 200 footballs a day, like a golfer working on his swing, to develop the kind of consistency necessary to do his job on game days.

"A quarterback doesn’t have to complete every pass,” Hunt said. One mistake by a punter, though, “can really ruin a game.”

His teammates and coaches, he said, understand how important his job is. The fans do, too.

“It’s weird, like it’s different than other schools it seems like, because when I hit a bomb, the crowd gets into it, the team hits my head like I made a touchdown, and Bobo high-fives me. … I don’t score points, but at this school, we take things seriously on a big punt, and it’s kind of cool.”

It’s better, he said, than any home run he ever hit on a baseball diamond.

“It’s funny how things happen,” he said. “You never know what’s going to happen in the future.”

Hunt wanted to be a good high school baseball player. He became one of the best punters in college football.

“I never thought in a million years that would happen,” he said.

Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.

•Next up: CSU at Fresno State, 7 p.m. Saturday, Bulldog Stadium, Fresno, California

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Ray Guy Award finalists

Michael Carrizosa, San Jose State: Sophomore from Salinas, California, leads the nation with his average of 47.9 yards a punt. He’s put 16 of his 40 punts inside the opponents’ 20-yard line, allowing six to reach the end zone for touchbacks. Opponents have made seven fair catches, and his team is No. 3 nationally in net punting at 41.78 yards a kick.

Tom Hackett, Utah: Senior from Australia and 2014 Ray Guy Award winner is averaging 47.4 yards a punt this season. He’s placed 21 of his 48 punts inside the opponents’ 20-yard line, with six touchbacks. Opponents have made 17 fair catches, and his team leads the nation in net punting at 43.44 yards a kick.

Hayden Hunt, CSU: Junior from Long Beach, California, averages 46.3 yards a punt. He’s placed 21 of his 43 punts this season inside the opponents’ 20-yard line, allowing just one to reach the end zone for a touchback. Opponents have made fair catches on 15 of his punts, and his team is No. 2 in the nation in net punting at 43.41 yards a kick.