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As his profile says on UtahUtes.com, like his kicking counter part Andy Phillips, from walk on to award watch list,Tom Hackett has be named to the 2014 Ray Guy Award watch list. The Ray Guy Award is given to the nations best punter. This First-team All-Pac-12 performer, and former Aussie Rules Footballer, led the Pac-12 in punt yards with 3,300, average with 43.4 yards per punt, punts inside the 20 yard line with 27, 50+ yard punts with 19 and and long punt 70. Hackett set the school record for punt yards in a season with those 3,300 yards.
In his first season, 2012, he had 25 punts for 972 yards (38.9 average) and downed 15 of his 25 punts inside the 20-yard line, including seven inside the 10-yard line and four inside the 5-yard line. In his first ever college football game, he was named Pac-12 Player of the Week after all three of his punts against BYU were downed inside the 10-yard line.
Here are his career numbers (courtesy of UtahUtes.com).
| Punting | G | Punts | Yards | Avg. | TB | FC | Inside 20 | 50+ | Blocked | Long |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 9 | 25 | 972 | 38.9 | 1 | 10 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 58 |
| 2013 | 12 | 76 | 3300 | 43.4 | 6 | 19 | 27 | 19 | 0 | 70 |
| TOTAL | 21 | 101 | 4272 | 42.3 | 7 | 29 | 42 | 20 | 0 |
70 |
Hackett is only one of two Pac-12 punters to be named to the Guy Award watch list, along with Cole Leininger of California.
As Tom Hackett puts it with his hashtags in his tweets (@TomHackett33) - #PuntersArePeopleToo. And we happen to think our punter is the best, and by far has the best accent.
Hackett makes it three Utes so far to be named to preseason watch lists, joining Dres Anderson and Andy Phillips.