NC State football: Five best punters

Some history could be made this fall in NC State football. Dave Doeren is six wins away from setting a new school record for most victories.

How many of Doeren’s players over the past 10 years would rank among the best in their position groups? During the month of July, TheWolfpacker.com is ranking the top five at all spots on the field in NC State football history.

At the punter position, Doeren can rightfully claim to have played a major role in boosting the position for NC State. Three of the top five played for him, two of whom were brought into the program by Doeren.

5. Preston Poag (1988-90)

Poag makes a case for being the most athletic punter in school history. He was also a quarterback for NC State, in addition to punting, and Poag additionally pitched for the baseball team.

Over three seasons as a punter, Poag averaged 40.1 yards per punt. Poag is one of four punters in school history (the other three are also on this list) to punt for at least three seasons and average a minimum 40.0 yards per attempt ever year.

He is now a high school football and baseball coach in Georgia.

4. Wil Baumann (2011-14)

Every year, Baumann seemed to get better. He started with an average of a modest 37.5 yards as a freshman. That improved to 38.9 a year later before his breakout in 2013, when Baumann finished with a 42.1-yard average.

Then as a senior, Baumann averaged a booming 45.4 yards, making him the first NC State punter in 27 years to lead the ACC in the stat. Baumann’s average remains third best in the school annals for a single season, and he was selected first-team All-ACC at season’s end.

That helped Baumann set a school record that still holds of 10,868 career punting yards. Baumann also holds the record for highest average in a single game, 55.2 yards over four punts against Presbyterian, which came in his all-conference 2014 year.

3. A.J. Cole III (2015-18)

The affable Cole was a steady punter for four seasons, averaging between 41.3 and 43.7 yards every year. That left him with a career average of 42.2 yards, which is fourth best in school history.

Cole finished his career with the second-most punting yards (9,288) in NC State football history.

However, while Cole is third on the list of best NC State punters of all-time, he has leaped to the top of Wolfpack punters in the NFL. After making the Raiders as an undrafted free agent, Cole has gone to back-to-back Pro Bowls over the past two seasons and led the NFL with an average of 50.0 yards per punt in 2021.

2. Trenton Gill (2018-21)

The former walk-on was a revelation in the fall of 2019, and for three seasons rewrote some of the longest-standing records in NC State football history.

He set a single-season school mark for punting average in 2019 (league-best 47.6 yards). His 45.1-yard average in 2021 is fourth best while his 44.9 yards in between is sixth. That means half of the top six punting seasons at NC State, statistically, belong to Gill.

No surprise that Gill’s 45.8-yard career average is a new school standard. He was also one of just two NC State punters to ever be drafted by the NFL, chosen in the seventh round by the Chicago Bears. Last year as a rookie, Gill averaged 46.0 yards on 66 punts.

1. Johnny Evans (1974-77)

Most NC State football fans recognize Evans as one of the voices of the radio broadcast team, but Evans was a dynamic football player for the Wolfpack.

In addition to being a starting quarterback, Evans was also an All-American punter. From 1974-76, Evans led the ACC in punting average all three years, and his 46.1-yard average in 1976 was a school record that lasted 45 years.

What separates Evans from Gill, even though Gill had better numbers, is that Evans played in an era where punting was not nearly the prioritized specialty it has become now.

For some perspective, only two punters prior to Evans for NC State, dating back to 1947, had an average of over 40 yards in a season before Evans’ freshman campaign, when he averaged 43.5 yards.

Evans averaged 44.0 yards per punt for his career. Only four punters averaged at least 43 yards per punt in a season since him, and only Gill did it multiple times. Evans still has three of the top nine single-season punting averages at NC State.

Evans was a second-round NFL Draft pick by the Cleveland Browns and punted for three seasons in the NFL.

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