WKU punter named AP first team All-American

A player from Western Kentucky University was named to the AP All-America football team.

Punter Cole Maynard gave the Hilltoppers their first-ever first-team pick.

Maynard led the nation in punting average during the regular season at 48.7 yards per punt, setting a WKU record for single-season punting average. 

The Hilltoppers will face Southern Miss in the New Orleans Bowl on Tuesday, Dec. 23, at 4:30 p.m.

Maynard’s recognition marks the first WKU player to be named AP First Team All-America since Buster Ashley in 2004, and the first player awarded All-America status since Jerreth Sterns was named Second Team in 2021. 


Four players from Ohio State are among 10 first-team picks from the Big Ten Conference, a group headed by repeat selection Caleb Downs of the Buckeyes and AP Player of the Year Fernando Mendoza of Indiana.

Downs, the Big Ten defensive player of the year, has made the first team each of his two seasons at Ohio State after landing on the second team as a freshman at Alabama in 2023. He is one of 12 players on the 27-man first team who did not start their careers at their current school. Downs is joined on the first team by fellow Buckeyes players Jeremiah Smith, Kayden McDonald and Arvell Reese.

Mendoza, who won the Heisman Trophy over the weekend, led the top-ranked Hoosiers to a 13-0 record and the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff after transferring from California. He has thrown a nation-leading 33 touchdown passes and is the catalyst of one of the most productive offenses in the country.

Iowa has had at least one first-team player for seven straight years and in 10 of the last 12. This is the fourth year in a row Miami, Notre Dame and Ohio State have had at least one.

Defensive lineman Landon Robinson is Navy’s first since 1975 and kicker Kansei Matsuzawa is Hawaii’s first since 1986.

The AP has named an All-America team every year since 1925, and Notre Dame’s two first-team picks this season increased its all-time lead to 87.

The rest of the AP All-America team is included in this AP article .



Photo: Western Kentucky Hilltoppers punter Cole Maynard (18) and long snapper Rex Robich. (WKU Herald)