Washington Huskies Punter up For Weekly Honor

SEATTLE — The Washington Huskies football team has struggled on offense this season, and that has led to the defense to pick up a lot of the slack through the first five games of the season.

The Huskies did their job against the No. 19 Southern California (USC) Trojans on Saturday and held the opposing team to 19 points, but UW ultimately fell 25-21.

Part of the defense's success was the field position the Trojans offense found themselves in, and the primary party responsible for that, fifth-year punter Hunter Green, is up for weekly honors.

Green was selected as one of the "Ray 8's" for his performance in Week 5 against USC. Fans will be able to vote for Green as the Ray Guy Punter of the Week. The seven other puunters up for the honor are: Jakob Anderson (Rutgers Scarlet Knights), Bryan Hansen (West Virginia Mountaineers), Will Karoll (Texas Tech), Patrick Rea (James Madison Dukes), Jackson Ross (Tennessee Volunteers), Daniel Sparks (Virginia Cavaliers) and Oliver Straw (Alabama-Birmingham Blazers).

Green punted six times for a total of 310 yards (51.7 average) with a long of 63 yards. Three punts were downed inside the 20-yard line and one led to a muff by the Trojans punt returner.

Green transferred to Washington from the San Diego State Aztecs, where he averaged 47 yards on 63 punts last season.

Green, the son of a former Huskies walk-on, was named to the preseason Ray Guy Award watchlist, which is annually awarded to the best punter in the country. The award was named after Ray Guy, who played at the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles from 1970-72. He was selected 23rd overall in the 1973 NFL Draft by the Oakland Raiders.

Guy played with the Raiders from 1973-86 and was a three-time Super Bowl champion and eight-time All-Pro (six-time first team, two-time second team).

Green has punted the ball 24 times this season for an average of 47.7, which currently ranks 13th in the country and third in the Big Ten behind Purdue's Dylan Drennan and Oregon's Bailey Ettridge.

UW is yet to score more than 24 points against a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) opponent this season and ideally would like to punt less, but head coach Jedd Fisch was complimentary of the work his punter has done.

"(Green's) ability to flip the field has been exceptionally good," Fisch said in a weekly news conference at Husky Stadium on Monday. "For some reason, there's been a lot of backed up plays for the offense. We've also been pushed back more times than I could ever remember, starting drives inside the 10-yard line. ... He's been able to give such as long field back to the other teams."