Penn State’s latest look into training camp provided an interesting peak at how the Nittany Lions are approaching special teams this year, specifically the return game.
Dodging tennis balls and catching footballs with boxing gloves on, Penn State special team’s coach Charles Huff clearly has the fundamentals in mind when it comes to the return game.
Penn State will look to make returns a threat once again after several years of fairly unremarkable return averages with fair catches likely the average on most punt returns. In fact, the Nittany Lions averaged just under 7 yards a punt return, a number that drops to 5.5 yards per return once Jesse Della Valle’s 44 yard return is removed from the mix.
The good news for Huff and Penn State fans, the Nittany Lions have options again. So whoever ends up holding down the kick returning jobs, they will have earned it. If that’s last season’s return man in Grant Haley or a newer face remains to be seen. While Haley was reliable from the fundamentals standpoint, his 20 yard return average was far from impeccable.
“We’ve got options,” Huff said earlier this summer. “Of course Grant Haley is still here. We’ve got some young guys. DeAndre Thompkins redshirted last year. Nick Scott has done it in high school; Koa Farmer has done it in high school. A lot of our options last year were redshirted. So this year it’s a good group back there and a lot of guys that have done it in high school have obviously done it and have done it successfully. You look at some of their high school films, and that was a big part of their film, returning kicks and making explosive plays on special teams, but now some of those guys who are not redshirted are going to give us a chance to kind of move forward.”
