Duke Adds Players to Preseason Lists for Best Punter and Kicker
By Chris Brown
The preseason honors for Duke football players continues to increase as two special teams players were recently named to national preseason award watch lists. Ross Martin was added to the Lou Groza Award watch list for the nation’s top kicker and Will Monday was named to the preseason list for the Ray Guy Award given to the best punter in the NCAA.
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Senior kicker Ross Martin will be honored on the watch list for the Groza Award for the third consecutive year, and finished as a semifinalist for the award in 2012 and 2014. Martin is currently Duke’s career points leader scoring at least once in every game he’s played in accounting for a total of 310 points on field goals and a school-record 110 extra points. His scoring total is 5th in the NCAA among active Division I kickers.
Redshirt senior Will Monday has been one of the top punters in the ACC and earned all-conference honors every year with the Blue Devils in addition to receiving Sports Illustrated All-America Honorable Mention recognition last season. In 2014, Monday helped Duke’s punting unit allow only 33 total return yards from opponents and their 2.54 punt return yards/game was the 3rd best in the country.
Duke Blue Devils
Martin and Monday will join several other Blue Devils competing for national awards at their position this season. Fellow special teams athlete and safety DeVon Edwards was a preseason nominee for the Hornung Award for the most versatile player in the NCAA, Matt Skura is in the running for the Rimington Trophy awarded to the top center, Braxton Deaver is on the watch list for the Mackey Award given to the best collegiate tight end, and, although linebacker Kelby Brown will now be out for the season after suffering another ACL injury, he and senior safety Jeremy Cash were preseason nominees for the Bednarik Award and the Lott IMPACT Trophy given to the top defensive players in the nation.
Head coach David Cutfliffe and the Duke Blue Devils will kickoff the 2015-2016 season with a Thursday night primetime game at Tulane on September 3rd at 9:30 pm. All of the preseason and national recognition should make an interesting season for the Blue Devils and we’ll be sure to keep you updated here on Ball Durham with all your Duke Football offseason news as the return of college football approaches.