Tennessee punter Jackson Ross has been named to the SEC All-Freshman Team.
Tennessee’s lone SEC All-Freshman Team selection was a 24-year-old Australian punter.
Jackson Ross began his first full season at Tennessee with a rough showing against Virginia before becoming a dependable member of the Vols’ special-teams battery. On Thursday, the 24-year-old Australian punter received one of the accolades for his outstanding redshirt freshman season in 2023 when he was named Tennessee’s lone selection to the SEC All-Freshman Team. The accolade put him in exceptional company; the previous Vols punter to receive all-freshman honors was Dustin Colquitt in 2001.
Tennessee was a latecomer to the Australian punter movement in American college football when it added Ross to its 2022 recruiting class last summer, and he relocated to a new nation just weeks before the start of last season.
Ross averaged 42.8 yards on 48 punts after redshirting previous season, placing sixth in the SEC and third nationally among freshman punters, and helping Tennessee rank fifth in the SEC and 20th nationally in net punting.
Ross had 18 pinned opponents inside their 20-yard line and nine punts of 50 yards or more. His longest punt was a 71-yarder against Alabama in October. Ross set a program record in that game, collecting 266 yards on five punts for a 53.2-yard average – the best single-game average (minimum five punts) in Tennessee history, surpassing Jimmy Colquitt’s 53.0-yard average (Auburn 1983 and LSU 1982).
Ross, who could kick with both feet and was effective with his Aussie-style rollout punts, was instrumental in Tennessee’s victory over Texas A&M in October, his punt down to the Aggies’ 1-yard line starting a sequence that ended with Dee Williams returning a punt for the game-winning touchdown.
Tennessee allowed only 5 net yards on seven punt returns all season, ranking third in the SEC and seventh in the FBS.
Ross was a three-year member of the Hawthorn Football Club after attending Haileybury College in his hometown of Melbourne. Tennessee discovered him through the Prokick Australia program, which has brought several punters to American college football – only two of the 14 SEC clubs did not have an Australian punter this season. Ross has kept in touch with other collegiate punters from his home state, including Iowa’s Tory Taylor, who will be his counterpart when the Vols take on the Hawkeyes in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Day in Orlando.
Tennessee had three players named to the Associated Press All-SEC teams earlier this week: defensive end James Pearce Jr. (first team), running back Jaylen Wright (second team), and center Cooper Mays (second team), but Pearce was the only All-SEC selection by the league’s coaches.
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