Kirk Christodoulou placed on Ray Guy Award watch list

Pitt punter Kirk Christodoulou was placed on the watch list for the Ray Guy Award on Wednesday. The award was established in 2000 and has since been given annually to the best punter in the country as selected by the members of the Augusta Sports Council.

The senior was one of seven punters from the ACC who earned a spot on the watch list. The other seven included Ben Kiernan of North Carolina, Ivan Mora of Wake Forest, Lou Hedley of Miami, Porter Wilson of Duke, Trenton Gill of NC State and Will Spiers of Clemson.

Christodoulou has appeared in each of the 38 games Pitt has played since the start of the 2018 season. In 2020, he played in 11 games and averaged a career-high 44.7 yards per punt on 53 punts. That average ranked No. 16 in the nation and No. 5 in the ACC. The native of Melbourne, Australia, also landed 23 punts inside the opponents’ 20-yard line and had just one touchback in the 2020 season.

The Aussie punter has been on the Augusta Sports Council’s radar for quite some time, as he was a semifinalist for the Ray Guy Award in 2020 and was named the Ray Guy National Punter of the Week twice: once following Pitt’s 41-17 win over Florida State on Nov. 7 and once after Pitt’s 17-52 loss to Clemson on Nov. 28. In addition, he was named a second-team All-American by Pro Football Focus.

No Pitt punter has ever won the Ray Guy Award. However, it has gone to ACC punters on three occasions. The first punter from the conference to win the honor was Ryan Plackemeier of Wake Forest in 2005. The next two were Georgia Tech punters Durant Brooks in 2007 and Pressley Harvin III in 2020.