Ranking the Big Ten: Punter

Many questions remain for what the 2020 college football season will look like, but that doesn't mean we still can't evaluate some of the top players to watch in the Big Ten Conference.

We continue our annual Ranking the Big Ten series today with a look at the league's top returning punters.

Rankings: QB | RB | WR | TE | OT | OG | C | DE | DT | ILB | OLB | CB | S

The Australian punter pipeline has taken over the Big Ten in recent years, and Illinois senior Blake Hayes is the best of the bunch.

A consensus first-team All-Big Ten selection in 2019, Hayes was named the conference's Eddleman-Fields Punter of the Year after leading the league with an average of 44.6 yards on a whopping 77 punts.

He also set a multitude of school records by downing 32 punts inside the 20-yard line (41.6 percent of his attempts), booting 22 attempts 50-plus yards, finishing with 3,437 total punt yards, and only recording two touchbacks for a 2.6-percent touchback percentage.

Hayes was tabbed preseason first-team All-Big Ten by all of the national magazines and Lindy's rated him the No. 5 punter in the country.

Last year was a season to forget for Rutgers, but the play of Adam Korsak was definitely one of the few bright spots.

Korsak ended up as the highest-graded punter in the Big Ten and finished seventh nationally with an overall grade of 87.0, per PFF. He led the conference for the second straight year with a net punt average of 41.5 yards, and his 43.8-yard total average was the third highest in program history.

He downed 31 of his 76 attempts inside the 20, includng putting 18 inside the 10 and nine inside the five with only two touchbacks. He also had 12 punts of 50 yards or longer, with three going 60-plus yards.

Korsak was a second-team All-Big Ten selection by the coaches and third-team by the media, and he was one of 10 semifinalists for the Ray Guy Award.

Will Hart was the model of consistency for Michigan last season, and he'll provide the Wolverines with steady leg once again as a senior in 2020.

Hart averaged 44.2 yards on 51 punts while putting 11 inside the 20-yard line and hitting 15 for 50-plus yards. He was named second-team All-Big Ten by the media and third-team by the coaches for his efforts.

Hart now comes into the season as a second-team preseason all-conference pick by Lindy's, which also tabbed him as the No. 6 punter in the nation.

Drue Chrisman has been a staple at punter for Ohio State over the past three years, and he stands to end his career as one of the program's most consistently productive players at the position.

A three-year starter for the Buckeyes, Chrisman's career average of 43.9 yards per punt ranks fifth in school history, and his 72 total punts inside the 20 rank third on the program's chart.

Chrisman averaged 44.3 yards per punt as a junior in 2019 to help OSU finish third nationally in net punting.

He was named preseason third-team All-Big Ten by Lindy's and Athlon, and Lindy's rated him as the No. 7 punter in the country going into 2020.

Haydon Whitehead had already posted an impressive punting career over the past five years at Indiana, but he'll get a chance to add onto it even more in 2020.

After averaging a career-best 42.5 yards (fifth in the Big Ten) on 51 punts last season, Whitehead was granted a sixth year of eligibility and will return again.

He laded 27.5 percent of his punts inside the 10-yard line to rank fifth in FBS in 2019, and he led the Big Ten by only having 11.8 percent of his punts returns. Whitehead was named honorable-mention all-conference for his efforts.