PSU Special Teams Preview

Well, we were debating whether or not to do this special teams preview at all, because, well, it’s the special teams. But it came down to this or watching the ESPN fantasy draft special (featuring the loathsome Matthew Berry, no less), and it’s still a couple hours until Phelps swims again, so we figured what the hell.

Let’s start with the exciting part of special teams – no, not the kickers – the return men. A.J. Wallace and Derrick Williams should once again be returning kickoffs this year for the lions. Wallace is coming off a very nice year, where he broke the school record for kickoff return yards in a season, highlighted by a 97-yard romp for a touchdown against hated Ohio State. Wallace averaged 26.4 yards per return last year, so he’s usually giving the O decent field position.

Williams averaged 18.2 yards per kickoff return last year, but he’s arguably as dangerous as Wallace. If his kickoff return game doesn’t prove that, his punt returning skills definitely do. We wouldn’t call his punt return campaign from last season stellar, but he’s been very solid over his career. And oh yeah, there’s this:

Beast. Suck it, Zbikowski.
Overall, we feel pretty good about the state of the return game. Now onto the very important and equally unappreciated: the kickers.

We lead off this category with place-kicker Kevin Kelly. Yes, we all remember him nearly blowing the Orange Bowl his freshman year like it was yesterday. Now the senior is Penn State’s all-time scoring leader, with 58 field goals and 307 points. Kelly was 20-26 on field goals last year, and connected on 44 of 45 extra points. Kelly’s stats turned out to be better than we imagined, as he always seems to have a knack for yanking a kick at an inopportune time. GoPsuSports.com says he should be a strong contender for the Groza Award for the nation’s top place-kicker. We’ll believe it when we see it.

Finally, the punter this year will again be Jeremy Boone, who’s coming off a very successful season replacing the solid Jeremy Kapinos. Boone lead the Big11Ten with an average of 43 yards per punt, which was 3rd best in school history. He put 25 of his 59 punts inside the opponent’s 20 as well. Also, kudos to both Boone and the punt coverage team, as their 39.4 net punting average was good for 3rd in the nation.

One final note: the team was 8th in the conference last year on kickoff coverage, so let’s hope they improve that a little, to take some pressure off the defense. We’re back next week with all kinds of Big11Ten preview goodness. Stay tuned.