Baylor Football’s Palmer Williams Honored For Standout Week Two Performance

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Baylor football sophomore punter Palmer Williams has been named to the Ray Guy Award “Ray’s 8” list, which honors the nation’s top eight punters of the week, as announced Monday afternoon by the award.

Williams punted six times in BU’s contest at No. 11 Utah on Saturday for a total of 376 yards, breaking Baylor’s program record with 62.7 yards per punt. The native of Advance, N.C., broke his own career-best four different times, with boots of 57, 60, 76 and 79 yards, a massive fourth-quarter kick that went for his only touchback of the day. Two of Williams’ punts were downed inside-the-20 and all six traveled greater than 50 yards, tying another program record.

Williams is the first punter in BU history to have two punts of at least 70 yards in the same game. He is the first Bear with a boot of at least 70 yards since Drew Galitz did so on Sept. 16, 2017, at Duke. Williams’ 79-yarder is tied for the sixth-longest punt in Baylor history and his 76-yard boot is ranked 13th. These are just the sixth and seventh kicks of 70+ yards by a Bear in the Big 12 era (since 1996).

Through the first two weeks of the season, Williams leads the country with a 57.9 yards per punt average, more than seven yards better than the next ranked punter. He has already surpassed his 2023 output (six) with seven punts of at least 50 yards. Williams’ three punts of at least 60 yards already places him tied for eighth on BU’s single-season leaderboard, just four behind the all-time record holder (Buzzy Sawyer, 1984).

Baylor has had one Ray Guy Award winner in its history in two-time recipient Daniel Sepulveda, who won the nation’s top punter honor in 2004 and 2006.