Penn State’s punting game has not been a strong point so far this season, and that was certainly apparent against Ohio State game when the Buckeyes consistently played on a short field.
The fact of the matter is that for all of the actual skill that is involved in punting a football, the entire process and ability to do it with relative consistency shouldn’t be this hard.
But yet, here Penn State is, with 37 punts on the season with an average of 35.6 yards a punt. For the sake of comparison, the Top 50 punters in Division I football this season are averaging over 41 yards a punt.
The problem for Penn State is that realistically he has two players who can punt, but can’t seem to do it well on a regular basis, and even with an open competition this week it isn’t as though James Franklin has a lot of options. Franklin knows what he has to work with and the only thing he can hope for is some consistency. He said it three times in a row on Tuesday.
“I think kicking, shooting hoops, things like that they tend to be streaky, especially when you’re young and inexperienced you can be streaky.” Franklin said. “I think Ficken can be a great resource for those guys and already has been, has been really good. We’re going to do some things and try and help them and we made adjustments last game. We’re going to continue to do those things, we’re going to use our directional punt team, do some things to try to help them, put the pressure on the other 10 guys, take it off them, but we made that adjustment last week. No different than anything else. There is no magic wand. They’re going to keep working hard and preparing and having really good dialogue back and forth, things we can do to help them as well.
“(Chris) Gulla had won the job and really the team and he had a lot of confidence. It’s one thing punting in practice, it’s another punting in games. I think he hasn’t been able to punt as consistently in games. You got to work through that. That’s what we’re going to do. That’s what we’re going to do. This week it will be open competition between the two of them. We will keep track of the yardage, the hang time all week long and whoever is the most consistent guy, we’ll go with them.”
The competition will feature two punters, Chris Gulla and Australian import Daniel Pasquariello. Robby Libel will be a part of the equation as well although Franklin doesn’t see him as a strong contender at this juncture.
“Technically Robby will be part of that competition but I think there is a good gap right now between those two guys,” Franklin said. “He will have an opportunity ‑‑ he does have a strong leg. He’s a big guy, but just like the issue that we’re having with those other two guys that we talked about before is the consistency. He will bang one for 60 yards then another one for 27 yards, so it’s the consistency of it that you’re looking for with these guys. Technically he will be part of the competition, but I would say right now there is a fairly significant gap between those two and Robby.”
So has anything really changed? That’s hard to know. But certainly Penn State can’t afford to give opponent’s short fields and will probably never start with favorable field position if it can’t flip the field.
So it better change.
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