Tory Taylor’s legend grew on Saturday with yet another dominant performance
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Reggie Roby is widely recognized as the greatest punter in the history of the Iowa football program, and deservedly so because the Waterloo native truly was special.
But it’s probably time to put Tory Taylor second on the list and he’s just barely halfway through his career as a Hawkeye.
Iowa probably doesn’t defeat South Dakota State 7-3 on Saturday without Taylor’s booming punts that repeatedly buried the Jackrabbits deep in their own territory.
The Melbourne, Australia native punted 10 times for a 47.9 average.
South Dakota State head coach John Stiegelmeier, who is in his 26th season as head coach, was asked after Saturday’s game if he has ever seen a punter make that kind of impact.
“I have not,” Stiegelmeier. “In fact, at one point I said, ‘this kid is a freak.’ I thought he kicked it out bounds one time and it rolls down to the two-year line.
“That is a powerful weapon. That is part of their defense, and reality is our field position was really tough a lot of the time.”
Taylor isn’t just a powerful weapon.
He is arguably Iowa’s most important player, and with how poorly the Iowa offense performed on Saturday, Taylor’s importance can’t be overstated.
“I probably wouldn’t say pressure or anything like that,” Taylor said. “But I did just find out I had 10 punts breaking a personal record for me, which is probably not the best thing I’d say.”
The fact that Taylor punted 10 times on Saturday helps to illustrate the problems that Iowa had on offense throughout Saturday’s game.
Iowa was held to just 166 yards on offense and was just 4-of-17 on third-down conversions.
Iowa’s average field position in the first half was its own 46-yard line, thanks partly to Taylor’s punting, and yet the score was 3-3 at halftime.
Taylor’s rise to stardom is an inspiring story, considering he never had punted in a football game, or even seem a football game, before signing with Iowa.
Taylor, who is 25 years old, grew up playing Australia rules football, and he is now part of growing trend of Australia natives who are punting for college teams.
The Iowa coaches deserve credit for identifying Taylor, and for having special teams coordinator LeVar Woods travel over halfway across the world to recruit him.
Because imagine this Iowa team without Taylor as its punter.
Scary isn’t it.
“It’s just really huge,” Kirk Ferentz said of Taylor’s impact. “It makes it a tough hill to climb if you’re on offense.”
Roby, meanwhile, was a key factor in Iowa’s resurgence under Hayden Fry in the early 1980s.
The combination of Roby’s booming punts and a rock-solid defense helped pave the way to a Big Ten title in 1981.
Fry called Roby, who passed away in 2005, one of the most important recruits that he ever signed at Iowa.
Iowa was limited on offense during the early years under Fry, so it helped that Roby repeatedly shifted field position.
Roby broke a 32-year old record for punting average in 1981 when he averaged 49.8 yards per attempt. He also led the nation in punting twic as a Hawkeye and punted for nearlyn four-and-a-half miles in college.
Fans used to show up early for home game just to watch Roby punt. The ball even sounded different coming off Roby’s foot compared to other punters.
And now Taylor is starting to build a similar following as fans get excited every time he takes the field, even though his presence means the offense just failed to produce.
He was named the Big Ten Punter of the Year as a freshman in 2020, and he averaged a whopping 46.1 yards on 80 punts last season.
Taylor was greeted with chants of “MVP” the last time he took the field to punt on Saturday.
In this case, the fans were right because Tory Taylor truly is Iowa’s most valuable player, and the best Hawkeye punter since Reggie Roby.