Bears Pick up Former Texas Tech and Arkansas State Punter Brook Honore

A flurry of commitments today started off with the signing of Arkansas State redshirt soph punter Brook Honore‍. The 6-0/185 punter will be an early entry scholarship signee for the Bears.

Honore originally signed with Texas Tech out of Manvel High School in Texas, expecting current Cincinnati Bengals punter Austin McNamara depart after the season for the NFL. When the talented punter returned, Honore eventually transferred to Arkansas State, who also brought in senior Ryan Heicher who won the starting nod.

The big-leg punter will now get his chance to make his mark with the Bears. And as it turns out, Arkansas State and Cal essentially made a trade, with frosh punter Bobby Engstler signing with Honore’s former team the other day.

An All-Greater Houston first team selection as a senior, Honore had 38 punts for 1,583 yards (41.7 average) with 20 kicks covered inside the 20-yard line during his senior season.

“I entered the portal and Cal’s kicking coach Ryan Longwell was looking for a guy who could get the ball downfield. He started talking with Aaron Perez with The Punt Factory, who I’d been working with a long time. Aaron’s a credible guy and he knows the way I punt and he asked him if he’d check me out yet. Apparently, Ryan had watched my film in high school and was familiar with me for the last three years so he watched my practice film from the last season and saw my continued improvement.

“We started talking and I was just impressed with all the knowledge Coach Longwell had from being in the NFL for 16 years. I’m just super blessed to have the opportunity and to be a Bear.

“It’s been my dream to play bigtime football and to play in the ACC and all those stadiums.”

“The difference between Lachlan (Wilson) and Brook is Lachlan’s going to get a lot of those rollout kicks that add distance by the rolls on his kicks,” Garcia, himself a former punter for UCLA said. “Brook is hitting the ball here consistently 50-55 yards with consistent 4.4 to 4.6 hang time so he’s got a big leg. I think he could easily average 45 plus. It’s just a matter of having a good spring, settling in and training.”