Johnston is a Ray Guy Award semifinalist – Ohio State Buckeyes
11/14/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 14, 2014
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Cameron Johnston, Ohio State’s sophomore punter from Geelong, Australia, has been named one of 10 semifinalists for the Ray Guy Award, which recognizes the nation’s outstanding punter. This is the second consecutive year that Johnston has been named as a semifinalist.
Johnston has been the best in the nation the last two years at dropping punts inside of the 20-yard line. This year Johnston has placed 15 of his 22 punts inside of the 20 for a 68.1-percent success rate. He’s had nine of his punts dropped inside of the 10, for a 40 percent success rate.
Johnston’s 43.4-yard average this season is hindered by two things: 1) the line of scrimmage for his punts is, on average, the Ohio State 44 yard line; and 2) he doesn’t get many opportunities to kick. Ohio State’s offense is so efficient that Johnston has punted a nation-low 22 times, or 2.4 times per game. He needs 3.6 per game to qualify for national rankings.
Johnston rarely gets to air it out – although he does have 15 career kicks over 50 yards with a long of 71 – so placement of his punts is critical for a team that leads the nation in average starting field position (the 14-yard difference between OSU’s starting position and its opponents is No. 1 nationally by far; no other team has even a 10-yard difference). For his career, Johnston has punted 71 times with 46 of those downed inside of the 20 (64.7 percent) and 23 downed inside the 10 (32.3 percent).
Ohio State currently ranks second in the Big Ten in net punting and 23rd nationally.
Ohio State travels to Minneapolis, Minn., this afternoon for a noon game Saturday against 7-2 and 4-1 Minnesota, which is coming off a 51-14 victory over a 6-2 Iowa team. ABC will televise the game to a national audience.
