Syracuse Football: Former punter Sterling Hofrichter inks deal with Falcons

Sterling Hofrichter, who had a tremendous Syracuse football career as the Orange’s punter, is now officially a member of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons.

Sterling Hofrichter, who punted for more than 11,000 yards during his All-American tenure with Syracuse football, has signed his rookie contract with the Atlanta Falcons, the NFL team has announced.

The Falcons’ press release says that Hofrichter will compete with veteran Ryan Allen for the squad’s punting post. Atlanta picked Hofrichter in the seventh round of the 2020 NFL Draft.

As my Inside The Loud House colleague Mat Mlodzinski reported, the four-year Orange starter represented the third Syracuse football punter chosen all-time in the NFL Draft.

Hofrichter, whose hometown is Valrico, Fla., according to his bio on cuse.com, had a stellar career average of 43.2 yards per punt as well as a career-high 43.9 yards per punt during the 2019 stanza.

Per Mlodzinski, Hofrichter’s total punting yards of 11,651 at the time his tenure on the Hill concluded ranked him fourth overall in the Atlantic Coast Conference as well as 16th in NCAA history.

According to cuse.com, Hofrichter proved a four-time candidate for the Ray Guy Award as the country’s best punter, and he was one of three finalists for the honor in his senior stint.

Hofrichter will go down as one of the top punters ever for the Syracuse football program, as he got voted onto seven different All-America teams in 2019 and culminated his Orange career No. 1 all-time in the squad’s punting yardage, No. 2 in gross average, and No. 2 in the number of punts, says cuse.com.

Besides his national recognitions, Hofrichter was a two-time All-ECAC selection, and he also landed on the All-ACC first squad in 2018 and 2019. Hofrichter served as the Syracuse football special-teams captain for three-consecutive seasons.

According to an article from Nate Mink of Syracuse.com, now that Hofrichter has inked his rookie deal, he can head to the Falcons’ training camp.

Mink writes that the “NFL and NFL Players Association reached an agreement to have players tested daily [for Covid-19] for the first two weeks of camp.”