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WVU Punter Enters Transfer Portal

The Mountaineers lose another player to the transfer portal.

Wednesday morning, West Virginia redshirt junior punter Evan Matthes has announced on Twitter that he has entered the transfer portal.

Matthes saw limited action during his time in Morgantown and with incoming freshman Oliver Straw of Australia arriving, there won't be an opportunity for Matthes.

Neal Brown already alluded to Straw being the team's punter in 2022. 

"Yeah, absolutely. That's why we signed him," Brown said when asked if Straw could be an impact right away. "He's got to go win the job but that's why we signed him. He's from the ProKick organization and if you look across college football, most of the guys that are from Australia are through ProKick. Ollie, he's unique. He can kick with both feet. He can roll to his right, he can roll to his left. He kicks spirals, he kicks end over end. Ollie will be able to give us the opportunity to change field position. We'll kick away from returners. People will have to use two returners. Two returners means less rushers. We think he could be potentially a game-changing type player within special teams."

Straw has a very strong leg that produces a good combination of hang time (average of 4.9 seconds) and distance, which sits around 48-50 yards consistently. His motion is not completely fluid and does need to work on his release and angle of his kicks. This will be something that he'll get cleaned up very early at WVU. What's most intriguing about Straw is that he has the ability to kick the ball with either leg.

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