Crunching the Numbers for Punter Johnny Townsend

Written By: Daniel Thompson

The Florida Gators 2015 season had both ups-and-downs on offense, defense, and special teams, but there was at least one constant throughout the year – redshirt sophomore punter Johnny Townsend.

Sure, punting isn’t the sexiest position to talk about and it often doesn’t get the praise that it should when things are going well, which is why Gator Country’s own Nick de la Torre patented the phrase, “punters are people, too”.

Entering the season, Johnny Townsend had to replace 2012 Ray Guy Finalist and 2014 Candidate Kyle Christy, who was likely a top-5 punter in Florida Gators history. He boomed the ball when he needed to and coffin-cornered punt after punt – a tough task for anyone to do, particularly someone who had not punted in a game in over a season. Christy averaged 43.57 yards per punt in 2014, which ranked 13th in the country.

Townsend, however, from game one was ready and kept it going all season. After the season began and a significant number of punts could occur (at least 15) that would allow one to judge if they were punts to shift field position or to pin opponents, Townsend never had a punt average below Christy from last season – the closest average he had was 43.59 after week eight. Throughout the season, Townsend boomed the ball, with 34% of his punts going longer than 50 yards, including 16 total punts that went at least 55 yards. His 45.36 yards per punt ranked 10th in the country.

But we all know that punting isn’t just about distance, it is about placement on the field. One key fact from Bill Connelly at SBNation, highlights just how great Johnny Townsend was at having a “successful punt”. Connelly describes a “successful punt”, based on the average of all punts on any specific part of the field on a polynomial scale that he created, and said that Townsend was successful (net punting yards) 53.6% of the time, which ranked third in the country.

Moreover, as we talked about throughout the season, Townsend continued to climb in the number of punts he had that resulted in a fair catch or landed inside the 20-yard line. Townsend ended the season with 59% of his punts resulting in a fair catch or inside- the-20 (49 of his punts) and only five total touchbacks. His 59% was because of a big improvement in the second half of the season, that yielded 38 of his last 59 punts (64.4%) to end up with a fair catch or landing inside-the-20, which was among the tops of in the country.

The Gators have a true world class punter in Johnny Townsend, oh, and get him for two more years.

Kevin Camps
Kevin, a lifelong Gator fan has followed and studied Florida football since 1990. He is a Gainesville native that has experienced many great triumphs of Florida football. Born and raised as a Gator, Kevin loves to talk and promote the Gator Nation. When not talking Gators, Kevin is spending time with his wife and five kids, serving in his church or grilling great bbq.