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In an announcement Tuesday morning by the Ray Guy Award Committee—which annually hands out the award for the nation’s top punter—named its semifinalists for the 2016 season. In a stunning development, Iowa’s own C.J. Beathard found his name included on the list of 12.
In a statement, the committee declared, “Even though C.J. Beathard is a quarterback, his two career punts have been downed inside the five yard line, for a perfect 519 punter rating. No other punter in football history can claim such a feat. His abilities would impress even Ray Guy himself and his accomplishments should be carefully considered.”
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Indeed, C.J.’s accuracy is on point. Despite only having a 35-yard average, his ability to pin his opponent within its own 5-yard line is an invaluable weapon and has clearly been a key turning point in a blowout win over Minnesota and a respectable loss against surging Northwestern. And let’s not forget that no other punter on the list has anywhere near 9 touchdown passes on the season. Beathard is truly a jack of all trades and the Ray Guy Award would be a great symbol of that.
When asked about being named to the list, Beathard responded “Ya know, people say I kinda look slow this year, so I figured since I can’t run anymore I might as well join the specialists since they never run. Turns out I’m pretty good at that too. Coach Ferentz was a bit nervous about it at first, but that’s football.”
Starting punter and graduate transfer Ron Coluzzi was a bit more sarcastic and simply said, “I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I guess I need to start throwing touchdown passes and jumping over defenders five yards away from a first down. Hopefully that’ll make me a Maxwell Award semifinalist. This is bullshit.”
Granted, most casual Hawkeye fans would see that Coluzzi has 32 punts (30 more than Beathard) and has a respectable 42-yard average. But could it be possible that the player we see as Coluzzi is actually Beathard? After all, they both wear #16. Could this all be a part of New Kirk 3.0? Coluzzi is Beathard? Beathard is Coluzzi? Finkle is Einhorn?