Local punting and kicking prospect Dylan Klumph is taking his talents to the Bay Area.
The 19-year-old football player inked his signature on a letter of intent to UC Berkeley on Feb. 4, known to college football fans across the nation as National Signing Day.
Klumph, who played a year for the Golden West College Rustlers in Huntington Beach, said he is proud to be a member of the Golden Bears 24-player recruiting class.
“It is a dream come true,” said Klumph, a Malibu resident, who will be attending Berkeley on an athletic scholarship. “The facility they have there is breathtaking. The support they have there for student-athletes is very encouraging. They have a huge program.”
Klumph, a 2014 graduate of Crespi High in Encino, heads north after a standout season at Golden West College, in which he averaged 40.6 yards a punt. He is part of a new group of Golden Bears that hopes to help the Golden Bears bounce back from a 5-7 2014 campaign next fall.
“The education they are offering me is absolutely one of the best in the nation,” he said. “They want to give me a scholarship, so why not? I get a great education out of it and play some football along the way.”
Although he will be joining a punting and kicking corps that has depth, Klumph will hit the Golden Bear gridiron with some kicking clout.
Burbank-based kicking guru Chris Sailor lists the 6-foot-3, 230-pound Klumph as the sixth-ranked punter in the 2015 recruiting. On his website, Sailor said Klumph is an outstanding punter and has a bright future ahead of him on the gridiron.
“He is big, tall, strong and athletic,” he said. “Punts for great distance and hang time. He has shown huge improvement over the years. Does very well under pressure. The sky is the limit for Dylan.”
During his season with the Rustlers, Klumph punted 50 times for 2,028 yards, which outdistanced opposing punters by 262 yards. Klumph’s longest punt of the season was 76 yards against Long Beach in the Beach Bowl. He registered 12 punts inside the opponents’ 20-yard-line and had two touchbacks. None of his punts were blocked by opposing defenses.
Klumph also made eight of 10 extra points for the Rustlers this season. In addition, he showed he was a kicker that wasn’t afraid of a little contact by registering three tackles, one assisted tackle and one rush for six yards.
Klumph, who was positioned mostly at kicker during his high school football career, said he did play a bit of linebacker at Crespi.
“I still have some linebacker blood in me,” he said.
After coming back from an ACL tear before his senior season at Crespi, Klumph averaged 38 yards on six punts and went seven of eight on extra points.
Klumph joins a Golden Bears kicking depth chart that already includes starting punter Cole Leninger, Matt Anderson, Noah Beito and Robbie McInerney.
The Golden Bears are one of a dozen schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Pac-12 Conference. Along with California, the highly ranked conference contains schools such as Arizona, Oregon, Stanford UCLA and USC.
“These are bigger, faster guys,” he said. “I believe I can hang with the best, so I am very excited.”