Watch list season is upon us. Most of college football's individual awards will be releasing preseason watch lists throughout the next week and a half, wrapping up July 19 with the Walter Camp Award watch list. Wednesday is kicker day in the watch list roll out, as the best place-kickers and punters in the country get to shine on the initial lists for the Lou Groza Award and Ray Guy Award.
The Ray Guy Award, named for Georgia native and College Football Hall of Fame inductee Ray Guy, is presented to the college punter of the year by the Augusta Sports Council. Among the statistics used to define punting excellence is net punting average, number of times a punt is downed or kicked out of bounds inside the opponents 20-yard line, total yardage punted, average return yardage, and percentage of punts not returned.
The list below has 25 punters, but the number of eligible candidates will grow when the award opens for nominations in September. A complete list of candidates for the 2013 Ray Guy Award will be released on Oct. 25. Ten semifinalists will be announced Nov. 8 after a meeting of the Ray Guy Award committee, then a national body of coaches, media, SIDs and previous Ray Guy Award winners will vote on the top three finalists. The finalists will be announced on Nov. 25 and the winner will be named at the Home Depot College Football Awards show on Dec. 12.
The 2013 watch list includes four punters who finished as Lou Groza Award semifinalists last season: Florida's Kyle Christy, Auburn's Steven Clark, Marshall's <player idref=iams and Iowa State's Kirby Van Der Kamp.
Check out the full list below. Remember, names can be added or removed from this list during the first weeks of the season. There are no official "snubs" quite yet.
Michael Bowlin, Washington State
Cayle Chapman-Brown, New Mexico State
Kyle Christy, Florida
Steven Clark, Auburn
Justin Duvernois, Illinois
Landon Foster, Kentucky
Thomas Hibbard, North Carolina
Tom Hornsey, Memphis
Colter Johnson, Massachusetts
Keith Kostol, Oregon State
Richie Leone, Houston
Mike Loftus, SMU
Anthony Melchiori, Kent State
Will Monday, Duke
Hunter Mullins, UAB
Pat O’Donnell, Miami
Darragh O’Neill, Colorado
Ethan Perry, TCU
Mike Sadler, Michigan State
Ben Skaer, New Mexico
Trent Tignor, East Carolina
Kirby Van Der Kamp, Iowa State
Harrison Waid, San Jose State
Cody Webster, Purdue
Tyler Williams, Marshall
