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Inside The Huskies

What a Guy: Big Week Ahead for Huskies' Hunter Green

The Huskies punter ranks sixth in the country, first in the Big Ten.
Dan Raley|
Hunter Green is the leading punter in the Big Ten and sixth in the country.
Hunter Green is the leading punter in the Big Ten and sixth in the country. | Dave Sizer photo

The days ahead will come at Hunter Green like holidays, especially if you're a punter extraordinaire such as he is.

On Tuesday, the University of Washington football team's fourth-down specialist will learn if he's one of 10 semifinalists in the running for the Ray Guy Award, which annually is given to the nation's top college punter.

Two weeks later, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Green, if he's made it that far, will find out if he's one of three finalists.

On Dec. 11, the Ray Guy Award committee names the winner, which is Green and every college punter's ambition.

For now, he's one of 63 candidates with a decided edge on most of them with his impressive credentials.

Green currently ranks No. 6 among the top college punters with a 48.1-yard average and first in the Big Ten Conference.

He's been the one UW player who's preformed consistently through nine games and he could make school history.

He's currently in position to pass Race Porter as the Huskies' all-time leading punter or finish right behind a guy who averaged 48.5 on 53 punts in 2021.

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Porter fell short of becoming one of the three Guy semifinalists in 2021 who were Matt Araiza, an All-American from San Diego State who finished with a gaudy 51.9 average; Adam Korsak, an Australian who averaged 45.3 for Rutgers; and Jordan Stout, who averaged 46 yards per punt for Penn State.

Green likewise played for San Diego State in 2025, averaging 47 yards per punt, and for Northern Colorado in the three seasons before that, averaging 46.4 in 2024 in his best showing.

He transferred to the UW to finish up his college career and share in a sentimental journey at the same time.

At the beginning of the season, it was his stated goal to win the Ray Guy Award, though he was concerned about coming off as too full of himself.

"That sounds bad, because I feel like that's a personal goal, and I don't want to just be focused on myself," he said during spring ball. "But if I'm pinning the team back, if I'm smoking the ball, hitting bombs, I'm putting the other team in bad position, which puts our team in even better position."

From Kirkland, Washington, he is the son of the late Phil Green, who was a walk-on Husky place-kicker and defensive back in 1991 and 1992.

This Green gives the Huskies a decided advantage in maintaining field position.

Of 41 punts, he has launched them 17 times for 50 yards or more, dropped 15 of them inside the 20 yard line and made opponents fair catch 12 of them. He has a long punt of 64 yards.

Ray Guy, if he were still alive, no doubt would be impressed by all of that.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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