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Buccaneers select kicker Matt Gay in fifth round

Back in 2016, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers turned heads and raised the ire of fans by burning a second-round pick on a kicker -- the ultimately doomed Roberto Aguayo.

He was sent packing just one year later, leaving the Bucs to hunt for a competent replacement ever since while attempting to make life work with the likes of Nick Folk, Patrick Murray, Chandler Catanzaro and Cairo Santos.

New coach Bruce Arians hopes Tampa has ended its search with Matt Gay, the team's fifth-round pick out of Utah taken with the No. 145 overall selection in the 2019 NFL Draft.

NFL.com's Lance Zierlein called Gay a "surprising omission from the Senior Bowl," labeling the kicker "a big boy with an even bigger leg who has the ability to drive both the long field goal and the long kickoff."

Gay left Utah nailing 86.2 percent of his field goals and showed an ability to hit from long range, connecting on 72 percent of his kicks from 50-plus yards at Utah.

Gay's former Utah teammate punter Mitch Wishnowsky was selected in the fourth round by the San Francisco 49ers. It marks the first time since 1985 that a punter and kicker from the same school were drafted.