A Numbers Game Leaves Punter Facing Long Odds in Bid for NFL Job

Numbers. Imagine a world without them.

The official NASA countdown for a launch would sound like this: “Some. Fewer. Very few. Not many at all now. Here we go . . . it’s outta here!”

The sign over the express checkout line at a supermarket would read: “Not too many items or less.”

A police officer would say to a speeding motorist: “Sir, you were going Real Fast in a Not-Too-Fast zone, I think. Could I see your license and registration, please?”

There would, however, be some nice qualities to a life without numbers. In such a world Pete Rose, for example, would likely have spent more time teaching his players how to hit a baseball and less time with his nose jammed against a parimutuel window.

For most of us, though, numbers are a subtle blend of good and bad. We could do without some of them but couldn’t live a day without others.

Take Trent Morgan. The former Cal State Northridge punter has a recurring dream about playing in the NFL. And his fate will be determined almost entirely by numbers.

Here are the good numbers for Morgan:

His punting average last season of 43.5 yards ranked him eighth in the nation in the NCAA. Six of those who finished ahead of him played at Division I schools. Only one player from a Division II school finished ahead of him, and he was from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo., altitude 5,200 feet, which translates into a kicked football traveling considerably farther than if kicked at sea level.

Of the six Division I punters who finished ahead of him, two kicked in places where the altitude also was a major factor--the University of Colorado in Boulder and BYU in Provo, Utah.

Also, Morgan’s 43.5 average would have given him a tie for fourth place last season in the NFL with the Indianapolis Colts’ Rohn Stark. His longest punt of the season at CSUN, a booming 70-yarder, would have tied him for first place in the NFL last season with Mike Horan of the Denver Broncos and Bryan Wagner of the Chicago Bears.

Now, the bad numbers for Morgan and his dream:

There are only 26 NFL teams. And there are usually no more than two or three punting vacancies in a season. Thus, of the 309 young men who regularly punted footballs for a Division I or Division II college football team last season, roughly 306 of them had better hope that they mixed in a little studying during their collegiate days because they are about to enter the real job market.

But for a few of them, this week is dream week. The NFL will hold its annual draft next Sunday and Monday, and perhaps two or three will be drafted in the very late rounds. Others will hit the free-agency trail, begging for a chance to show their stuff in an NFL training camp. Very few will succeed along either route.

“Last year there were five punters drafted out of college, but that was a very unusual year,” Los Angeles Rams kicking coach Artie Gigantino said. “A lot of teams had punters of the age that they wanted to bring in a young guy to challenge them. It was a freak year. On the average, three punters are drafted each year.”

Morgan believes, though, that his number will come up during a free-agent tryout. He already has had tryouts for the Los Angeles Raiders, Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions. None will say how he did or whether they will actively pursue him, but Morgan said that the Packers have shown the most interest. And well they should, what with Don Bracken, last year’s punter, who finished next to last in the NFC with a paltry 38.7 punting average.

Why the Lions, with Jim Arnold--the NFC’s leading punter--signed to a contract, would show any interest in a Division II punter remains a mystery. And Jeff Gossett of the Raiders had a respectable year, finishing sixth in the AFC with a 41.8-yard average.

Another problem with numbers for Morgan: This year, the NFL will limit the number of players a team can bring to training camp to 80. Before, there was no maximum and teams often brought as many as 10 punters and kickers into camp to fight it out.

So what is Morgan to think? What is Morgan to do with all of these conflicting and confusing signals? Well, Morgan plans to do what the average person would do when he can’t figure something out: He will drop back and punt.

“I know free agency will be the road I take,” said the 5-foot-10, 165-pound Morgan, who works out daily on the CSUN campus. “The Packers told me they had a great need at this position and that they were definitely interested in me. But they also said there was much greater need at other positions as far as the draft was concerned. They said there were more important people to be drafted.

“But they said if no one else drafts me, they’d like to have me in camp. And I am thinking very positive. If I can just get on a field during a game situation and show them what I can do, I know I can make it.”

Morgan does, however, know the greatest obstacle: the dreaded numbers.

“Even as confident as I am, I realize it won’t be easy,” he said. “I know there’s only one position on each team, that you’re either the starter at that position or you’re off the team. There are no second-string punters. You’re either the No. 1 guy or you go back home and wait for another telephone call.”

CSUN Coach Bob Burt watched Morgan develop last season under the guidance of CSUN assistant coach Rich Lopez after the punter transferred from L. A. Harbor junior college. He said Morgan got consistently better with each game and that the punter continues to improve almost daily in his workouts at CSUN.

“Trent has legitimate NFL leg strength and hang time, and he drives the ball really well,” Burt said. “I can’t imagine anyone much better in college. He is a legitimate NFL prospect. Maybe he’ll go in the late rounds of the draft, but more likely he’ll get free-agent tryouts.

“The NFL looks for hang time, leg strength and athletic ability, and Trent’s got those things.”

But even Burt, Morgan’s biggest fan, knows what the numbers mean.

“Even with all of his assets, the problem with making it to the NFL is that somebody has to like you,” he said. “Somebody from an NFL team has to see you and like you and push for you to make it. There are a lot of very good football players who never get a chance.

“And with punters, with there being just one per team, it becomes a real crap shoot. You think of how many college punters there are and there are just 26 jobs in the NFL and very few of those jobs are open each season . . . those are long, long odds.”

And spending time at junior college and Division II football programs won’t help Morgan’s chances, either, although Gigantino of the Rams, who said he had never heard of Morgan, offered that playing for a small school as a punter might not be such a big liability.

“A punter and kicker are in a different situation than the other players,” he said. “Punting and kicking are very individual skills. My feeling is that if you can punt, you can punt. With linemen from small schools you wonder what they’ll do against much better competition, but with kickers and punters I don’t think it’s a concern at all.

“The only possible concern is how a kid from a small school who played before a few hundred or a few thousand fans will react in front of 75,000 fans. You wonder a bit about their ability to perform consistently under big-time pressure because they’ve never been in that situation.”

But with all the possibility for failure, Morgan remains confident. And one reason is that he holds in his mind a trump card named Bryan Wagner.

Wagner, the Bears’ highly successful punter last season who was ranked eighth in the NFL with a 41.5-yard average, also played at Northridge.

Wagner is CSUN’s all-time leading punter with a 43.7-yard average in 1983. He banged around the fringes of the NFL for four years, being cut more often than a man shaving with an electric hedge trimmer before making it big with the Bears.

Wagner’s average at CSUN was a scant two-tenths of a yard better than Morgan’s. And Morgan figures the difference--less than the length of a football--is not enough to keep him from chasing his dream.

“I never met Bryan Wagner, but I sure know about him,” Morgan said. “If he did it from CSUN, I know I can do it, too.”