to make the jump from that sport's top professional competition, the Australian Football League (AFL), to the NFL, doing so in 1994. Ben Graham, who entered the league with the New York Jets, became the first AFL player to play in a Super Bowl when he played in Super Bowl XLIII with the Arizona Cardinals. Graham is now a free agent. Other former AFL players who made the transition to NFL punters include former NFL punter Mat McBriar and Sav Rocca, formerly of the Washington Redskins. In recent years, an increasing number of Australians have been making the transition to gridiron football at earlier ages, with a significant number now playing for U.S. college teams. Between 2013 and 2017, all five Ray Guy Awards, presented to the top punter in NCAA Division I football, were won by Australians: Tom Hornsey (Memphis, 2013), Tom Hackett (Utah, 2014 and 2015), Mitch Wishnowsky (Utah, 2016) and Michael Dickson (Texas, 2017). All three finalists for the 2016 award were Australians. In the 2018 season, nearly one-fourth of the schools in college football's top level, Division I FBS, had at least one Australian punter on their roster. Sam Koch revolutionized punting by developing many variations, due to his flexible hips in an effort to increase net punting average by giving the ball variable trajectories and bounce, making it more difficult for returners to catch and return. The New England Patriots were noted for almost exclusively employing left-footed punters during the coaching tenure of Bill Belichick, who claimed it was unintentional. Left-footed punters have been increasingly used at the NFL level; at the start of the 2001 NFL season, there were 26 right-footed punters, four left-footed ones and one (Chris Hanson) who was dual-footed. By the 2017 NFL season, there were 22 right-footed punters and 10 left-footed ones. By the late 2010s and early 2020s, punters were highly specialized players on an NFL roster. Louis Bien of SB Nation wrote: A punter's job is no longer simply to kick the ball high and far while fans hold their collective breath that this time isn’t the time when the ball flies sideways into the stands. No, punters are now neutralizing and terrorizing the most electric return men in the NFL with kicks that spin and move and bounce and flip in all sorts of unpredictable, terror-inducing ways". Notes External links American football plays American football positions American