By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – My pick for the midseason most valuable player on the 2023 Iowa football team is the same player I would have picked as last season’s midseason MVP – senior punter Tory Taylor.

It came down to Taylor, junior defensive back/punt returner Cooper DeJean and senior linebacker Jay Higgins.

While all three have been huge factors in Iowa’s success, Taylor’s consistency, and his ability to flip field position, means more to this Iowa team than anything else.

Taylor is averaging 48.0 yards per punt heading into Saturday’s game at Wisconsin, which could go a long way in determining the Big Ten West Division title.

He has punted 36 times in six games, which is tied for fourth most in the nation, and 15 of his punts have traveled beyond 50 yards and 12 have been downed inside the 20-yard line.

Iowa has shown since the start of last season, that despite having a struggling offense, winning still is possible if a team excels on defense and on special teams.

Iowa has a 5-1 record this season, and a 13-6 record since the start of last season, despite all the deficiencies on offense.

There have been multiple times this season when the Iowa offense has gone 3-and-out in its own territory, but then Taylor would go on to flip the field position with a booming punt.

The Melbourne, Australia native, who turned 26 in July, and who never had played American football until becoming a Hawkeye in 2020, now easily ranks as the second-best punter in program history behind the legendary Reggie Roby.

Nobody will ever supplant Reggie Roby as the greatest Hawkeye punter ever, but Taylor might deserve consideration to be ranked as 1A on Iowa’s all-time list because he’s been that good.

Taylor figures to play a key role against Wisconsin on Saturday if the game plays out as most expect it will as a low-scoring slugfest between two physical teams.

Iowa’s decision to recruit Taylor from Australia has benefitted beyond probably what anybody could have expected.

Taylor is part of new wave of Australian punters that are taking over college football, and look for Iowa to keep recruiting punters from down under.

He grew up playing Australia rules football in which kicking an oval ball with power and accuracy is required, and he has since transferred many of those skills into being a star punter.

A strong case could be made for DeJean, and for Higgins, to be the midseason MVP because both have been spectacular.

But Tory Taylor is a twice-in-a lifetime punter, the closest we have seen to Reggie Roby in over 40 years.

Taylor has managed to make punting fun when really it’s the result of the offense failing.

Fans don’t normally get excited when a punter takes the field. But Iowa fans have watched Taylor rescue the sputtering offense so many times to where they actually seem to find some enjoyment in watching his punts soar through the air.

That’s an MVP.