It may seem hard to believe, but Tory Taylor has become best Hawkeye punter ever

This is said with nothing but appreciation and awe for Reggie Roby: Tory Taylor is the Iowa Hawkeyes’ best punter ever, if only by the nose of a football.

Roby was a punting god. His 49.8-yard average in 1981 broke the NCAA record, and did wonders to help change the image of Hawkeye football as Hayden Fry’s team.

Fry and assistant coach Dan McCarney said they did a dance together in Waterloo the December 1978 night Roby committed to Iowa over Wisconsin, knowing the impact he would make on a program that had work to do to build an offense.

“The night before the signing date, we took our whole coaching staff to Waterloo to show Roby how much we wanted him,” Fry wrote in his autobiography.

Kirk Ferentz didn’t send his entire staff to Australia in early 2020 to persuade Taylor to become a Hawkeye. Luckily for the program, special teams coach LeVar Woods was persuasive enough.

Taylor’s average in this, his senior season, is 48.3 yards. That’s not quite 49.8, but consider this:

Roby didn’t punt from opponents’ territory his junior and senior seasons. Tom Nichol, Iowa’s accomplished placekicker on that ’81 Rose Bowl team, “pooch-punted” 11 times when Roby was a junior and eight when he was a senior.

Taylor punts every punt. He already has 45 this year, one more than Roby had in all of the 1981 season and at least 12 more than any of the four players ahead of Taylor in punting average. Now consider this:

Just one of Taylor’s 45 boots has resulted in a touchback. Seventeen have landed inside the opponents’ 20.

On his first punt last Saturday at Wisconsin from the Badgers’ 43, Taylor dropped the ball at the Wisconsin 1. It bounced back to the 4, like a magic trick.

“My phone instantly exploded, after that punt,” said Nichol, who is from Green Bay, Wis., and lives there now. “I got about 10 texts from Badger fans asking ‘What’s up with this guy?’

“It’s just amazing.”

Iowa has had several fine punters between Roby and Taylor, terrific ones in fact. Jason Baker was superb, and now mentors Taylor from afar. Nick Gallery was Iowa’s last first-team all-Big Ten punter (1995 and 1996) before Taylor in 2020 and 2022. Ryan Donahue was a Ray Guy Award finalist in 2010.

Taylor is something else.

“To be getting that kind of yardage plus that kind of coverage because of his hang time, it’s allowed really good field position,” Gallery said. “Which is great.”

“I’m a fanboy of Tory’s,” Donahue said. “I have been ever since he came on the scene.

“A lot punters’ averages go up and down. With Tory, all his punts are in a range from 40 to 57 yards. That’s consistent. You eliminate bad punts, your average goes way up and you’re setting the world on fire.

“That’s why he’s elite. He doesn’t miss.”

Nichol saw Roby up close on a daily basis. They were road roommates as well as kicking partners. Nichol was in Roby’s wedding. His memories of the man who went on to a 16-year NFL career and twice was a first-team All-Pro aren’t grainy video.

“Everything about him was different than any punter I’ve ever seen,” Nichol said. “Most punts kind of have a parabolic shape. It seemed like when Reggie punted, it would stay in the air so high for so long. Then it was like going across a table, and when it got to the end of the table it would come straight down.

“It was tough to catch those punts because they came down so vertical as opposed to most punters where the ball comes down at an angle.

“I remember one time a (Green Bay) Packers scout was at practice and he wanted to time some of Reggie’s punts. So we go to Kinnick and that guy was about 20 rows up with his stopwatch.

“Reggie had about six or seven punts and the guy waves his hands and he’s like ‘I’ve seen enough.’ He looked at Reggie and said the Packers aren’t going to draft a punter until the late rounds, and there was no way he was going to be around by then.”

There are only 32 punting jobs in the NFL and not even drafted punters are shoo-ins. Donahue played one season for the Detroit Lions and knows how tough it is to stick. Asked if Taylor is in an NFL punter, however, Donahue didn’t hesitate.

“I absolutely do,” he said. “He’s got consistency that teams are going to love. There are 5,000 guys who can kick 60 yards, but only 32 can do it consistently.”

Nichol happily talks about Roby and his feats, but is a big fan of all Hawkeyes sports, and loves what Taylor has done. When told just one of Taylor’s 45 punts has gotten into the end zone, Nichol said “That’s insane.”

“It seemed like when Reggie was on, which was most of the time, the other team had to go 80 or 90 yards every time. And now with Tory Taylor doing that with that defense, it’s a pretty good formula.”

Like the rest of college football, the Big Ten now is flooded with Australian punters such as Taylor.

“They can do some great things with the ball,” Gallery said. “They have that kind of inverted pooch kick that they do, something I never really got into.”

“We grew up throwing the ball,” Donahue said. “The Aussies grow up kicking an oblong ball.”

The punters of yore didn’t try to hit knuckle balls that land inside the 5 and bounce backward.

“We always hit spirals to the coffin corner to try to pin teams deep,” said Nichol, who succeeded Roby as Iowa’s main punter in 1983. “Tory Taylor punts it without a spiral, and end over end it still goes 55, 60 yards. How strong is his leg?”

Strong enough to help carry Iowa to a 6-1 record.

“If the Packers had him,” Nichol said, “he’s probably be worth three wins a year the way he flips field position and is pinning opponents deep.”

Would anyone argue he’s been worth that much to the Hawkeyes already this season? He arguably, by a blade or two of synthetic turf, is the best punter Iowa has known.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com