Our new Punter...

[Samphin]

Hey all, I went to the Stanford-UCLA game yesterday at Stanford's home field. Pretty good game but what got me excited was watching Stanford's punter. Eric Johnson. He is a senior so he most likely will be entering the draft after this season. Anyhow let me get to what he did.

He punted 8 times for an average of 47 yards. These weren't the hit the ground and roll 20 yards average varities either. These were BOOMING kicks. He punted one 61 yards for crying out loud! Also, he dropped 4 of them inside the twenty and a couple of those inside the ten. He was absolutely amazing and it made me shake my head to what we we were settling with Royals.

With the _ pick in the _ round. The Miami Dolphins select: Eric Johnson, P, Stanford. I would love to here those words come Draft Day.

 

[Chambers34Phins]

I would as well, I'm tired of losing games because we can't get good field position because our punter shanks kicks at horrible times.

 

[Samphin]

The best part was this. Stnaford was up 21-7 late in the game. UCLA put a drive togethe and closed to within 21-14. Stanford got the ball back and did nothing with it. In fact, they went backwards due to consecutive sacks on second and third down. Mr. Johnson steps in from inside his own 20 and busts out the boomstick and actually pinned UCLA deep into their own territory. It literally knocked the wind from their sails on UCLA's sideline. That had all the momentum going with scoring and getting the ball back, until Johnson kicked them all in the groin collectively. The fact that he did it with the game on the line showed me something as well.

 

[Muck]

So the kicks were very high. I assume he wasn't outkicking his coverage??

 

[DeDolfan]

Originally posted by Samphin
Hey all, I went to the Stanford-UCLA game yesterday at Stanford's home field. Pretty good game but what got me excited was watching Stanford's punter. Eric Johnson. He is a senior so he most likely will be entering the draft after this season. Anyhow let me get to what he did.

He punted 8 times for an average of 47 yards. These weren't the hit the ground and roll 20 yards average varities either. These were BOOMING kicks. He punted one 61 yards for crying out loud! Also, he dropped 4 of them inside the twenty and a couple of those inside the ten. He was absolutely amazing and it made me shake my head to what we we were settling with Royals.

With the _ pick in the _ round. The Miami Dolphins select: Eric Johnson, P, Stanford. I would love to here those words come Draft Day.

How about his hang time? 5.0 or better?

 

[Samphin]

Hang time was solid. I looked up his carerr stats. He red shirted his freshmen year. He averaged 38 yards his first season kicking. His second he had it up to 39. Last year he improved a little more, and this year he has bene unbelievable. His career long is 64 and had consistantly put them over 50. His average is misleading due to his kicking inside the twenty (Stanford had no placekicker worth a damn so they have to punt a lot in enemy territory).

Muck, one return was brought back a ways but it was due to a holding call that wasn't called, and Johnson slowed him up enough to allow the coverage to catch back up to him. So I suppose on that one he outkicked it a tad, but he really should have been wrapped up before busting loose.

All in all, he looks like he could be available later in the draft and could be a nice project to toy with. He also can hold on place kicking and has completed first down passes when the snap was to high on punts. Seems to make good decisions. Just someone to watch.

I don't usually scout players as much as I do schemes and tendancies but man, he definately caught my eye yesterday. I feel like his agent...you know, dirty.