MACwood Squares: Who's The Best Ball State Punter?

MACwood Squares is our summer reading series on the best athletes in Mid-American Conference sports history. This week features Ball State. Looking for your MAC school? Consult our schedule for other teams and please submit your nominees as well.

Not even going to dignify a poll with placing three great punters in a group with the rest of the football players. They get their own poll, and it's only right that BSU gets one (1) punter onto the list of nine. No more, no less.* They earned it.

Brad Maynard (1993-96) — Not only was he a First Team All-MAC, but in 1996 he was the MAC Defensive Player of the Year. As a punter. This seems weird but at the time they didn't have a separate award for special teams. Nonetheless, his 44.2 yards per punt in his career is third best in conference history. This got him drafted in the third round of the 1997 Draft by the Giants, who didn't want him after three seasons, and has been the fourth down guy for the Chicago Bears for the last 10 years. And if you've seen any Bears games, you know he gets a lot of work.

Reggie Hodges (2001-04) — Hodges is ninth on the MAC all-time list on total punt yards (10,210). He was a First Team All-MAC in 2004, went in the sixth round of the 2005 Draft, then proceeded to play for eight teams in a five-year span: Rams, Eagles, Colts, Seahawks, Patriots, Jets, Titans, Browns. He's still with Cleveland, which is weird. But so is this, which is an NFL record:

Chris Miller (2005-08) — And then there's the guy who didn't go to the NFL, and yet has the MAC record for best punting average in a career (44.8). Once he had a 78-yard punt, a school record. And he was three times a First Team All-MAC as well as once a first-team All American by the AFCA. But while he was a top five punter coming out of college, no NFL team signed him. That's just kind of how it works. By the way, I got a lot of this from his LinkedIn page, where he has a private sector job and everything. So good on him.

Who are your nominees for Ball State's MACwood Squares? Comment below, tweet us at @HustleBelt or submit a FanPost making your case. The final nine will be revealed Friday.

* - Okay, maybe two.