Syracuse Football: Falcons grab badly-needed punter in Sterling Hofrichter
The second Syracuse football player of the 2020 NFL Draft was taken when the Atlanta Falcons picked punter Sterling Hofrichter in the seventh round.
Syracuse football fans will be excited to know that punter Sterling Hofrichter became the second Orange player selected in this year’s NFL Draft after teammate Alton Robinson was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the fifth round.
The four-year Orange starter also becomes the third Syracuse punter selected all-time in the NFL Draft and looks to join Riley Dixon as the second Orange punter to secure a starting job.
Hofrichter, who punted for nearly 12,000 total yards in his Syracuse career, was known for his ability to pin opponents deep into their own territories. He has a career average of 43.2 yards per punt, with a career-high of 43.9 ypp this past season.
His career statistics can be found in all the overall college football leaderboards as well. Hofrichter’s total punt yards of 11,651 currently rank fourth on the all-time ACC list and 16th in NCAA history. His 43.2 punting yards per punt also ranks 10th in ACC history. All of these statistics have been tracked since 2000, which shows how good of a punter Hofrichter truly is.
Sterling is set to join an Atlanta Falcons team that is in dire need of a consistent punter. Last season they went through three punters over the course of 16 games. None of the three were able to post an average of 42 ypp or better. As a team, the Falcons were third to last in the NFL in average ypp, second to last in net ypp, and near the bottom in punts inside the 20 yard line.
In other words, Atlanta needed to find a punter, and boy did they get one in Hofrichter.
How about a Syracuse football two-for-one, Atlanta?
Although Syracuse has a Lou Groza Award kicker on their squad, Hofrichter is actually very good at kicking from deep. Over his four years, Hofrichter connected on three of four field goals, to go along with one extra point in as many tries. Although NFL teams don’t tend to assign punters or kickers to double-duty, having a player with that skill is good to have at their disposal, especially in the case of an in-game injury.
Although we’re still a few months away from a *hopeful* NFL return, it’ll be interesting to see if Hofrichter can continue the legend of Syracuse University, sometimes known as ‘Punter-U’.
But with all jokes aside, it’s a great pickup for a Falcons team that needed a new punter. Sterling Hofrichter is now their guy.