via news.au.com
An Australian duo has swept college football’s special teams awards, with the pair being named as the best kicker and punter in the game.
Adelaide native Brad Craddock and Melbourne’s Tom Hackett will both be eyeing careers in the NFL after winning the top prizes in college football.
Craddock, the kicker for Maryland, won the Lou Groza Award as the number one college kicker after a breakout third season with the Terrapins in which he recorded outstanding 95 per cent field goal accuracy.
Craddock missed just one goal from 19 in a memorable year, with his only blemish coming on a monster 54-yard attempt in the final game of the season against Ohio State.
Craddock had already been named the Big Ten’s kicker of the year earlier this month and was included on the All-American second team last week.
“Obviously, being here for three years you understand what all these awards are and what they mean to get, how hard they are to get,” Craddock told the Testudo Times.
“Obviously, it’s just an honour to be standing down here. And having my name called was just a blessing on top of all the other blessings I’ve got this year.”
Tom Hackett with Ray Award Award trophy
But the night got even better for our homegrown contingent when Melbourne’s Tom Hackett won the Ray Guy Award as the best college punter.
Not only was Hackett the first Utah punter to snare the prestigious prize, he was the first Utah player of any position to win a National College Football Awards Association honour.
Hackett led every punter in the United States with 35 punts inside the 20-yard line and 19 punts inside the 10-yard line.
His distance was also prodigious — he was ranked second in the country with 47 yards per punt and was also second nationally with 3619 total punting yards.
And it seems the win came as a shock to the young star, if his tweet as he prepared for the evening is any indication:
Here goes nothing I guess…#RayGuyAward #PuntersArePeopleToo pic.twitter.com/FQI9XnjP6b
— Tom Hackett (@TomHackett33) December 11, 2014
Source: News.com.au