Mountain West Football: Stonehouse, Cusick Named To 2019 Ray Guy Award Watch List

The list of athletes who could be college football’s best punter includes two from the Mountain West.

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Is it possible a Mountain West specialist wins?

Watch list season continued today with the release of the Ray Guy Award’s list of players to follow. Given annually to the nation’s best punter, there are two athletes from the Mountain West, any of whom could claim the prize for the conference.

The list is headlined by Colorado State’s Ryan Stonehouse, recently voted by our staff and the larger Mountain West media as a first-team all-conference selection. He finished second among all FBS punters with a 48.31 yards per punt average, landing 13 of 66 kicks inside the opponent’s 20-yard line with a net average of 38.8 yards per attempt.

Fresno State punter Blake Cusick took another step forward in 2018 to become an invaluable asset for the conference champions, dropped 31 of 65 punts inside the 20-yard line while earning a 40.0 net average yards per attempt. Combined with an average return of just 3.5 yards, that was good enough, according to Bill Connelly to rank fifth nationally by Punt Efficiency.

Last year’s Ray Guy Award winner was Texas A&M punter Braden Mann.