Following a stellar outing in South Florida Football’s Hawaii’ Bowl victory and one of the top punting seasons in program history, Bulls punter Andrew Stokes (Perth, Australia) has been named a Phil Steele Honorable Mention All-American.
Stokes was a big key to the Bulls second-straight bowl game victory as USF downed San Jose State, 41-39, in a five-overtime thriller on Christmas Eve. The Bulls’ eighth bowl game victory in 12 appearances, including back-to-back wins in head coach Alex Golesh’s first two seasons, helped USF finish 7-6.
Stokes becomes the 14th Bull to earn an All-America recognition and the first punter since Tony Umholtz was named a First Team AP All-American in 1999. He also earned First Team All-AAC honors from both Phil Steele and AAC coaches as he finished the season leading the conference with 27 punts downed inside the 20, just three short of the USF record, and 45.4 average that stands second all-time in the USF record books.
Stokes punted 69 times or 3,141 yards on the year, the third-most yardage in a season at USF, and capped his final season with a stellar outing in the Hawai’i Bowl. In the victory over San Jose State, Stokes hit a 72-yard punt that tied as the longest in program history and came with 2:09 to play in the fourth quarter and USF trailing by three. It flipped the field allowing the USF defense to get a stop at the SJSU14 and for USF to hit a game-tying 41-yard field goal with :02 remaining to send the game to overtime. His 51.0-yard average on seven punts were a career-best that ranks fourth all-time at USF.
Stokes ended his USF career second all-time in career punts (197) and career punting yardage (8,277) as well as the all-time leader in punts downed inside the 20 with 73 and in consecutive punts without a block with 197. Meanwhile, his 42.0 career average ranks fourth all-time at USF.
