Joey Julius. Blake Gillikin.
Just saying their names makes you smile, doesn’t?
The alliterative first and last names. Then the first and last names that both seem to be first names.
Makes their head coach smile, too.
“Joey is a talented guy and I am proud of him,” says James Franklin. “He’s embraced his role.”
“Blake Gillikin coming in as a true freshman I thought punted extremely well,” Franklin said after the season-opener, when Gillilin’s first boot as a college punter went 49 yards. “…He showed it time after time after time in practice.”
Week after week, watching the kickers has become even more enjoyable. They have provided ammunition for some of the best oohs and ahhs, stats and Tweets, and GIFs and Vines of Penn State’s 2016 season.
Julius, in big part, because of his big hits after he kicks off. And Gillikin for his ginormous and wondrous array of punts. That’s not all, of course. There are plenty of reasons that everybody loves Joey & Blake.
Joey & Blake sounds like a show on Nick at Nite and no wonder: They are part Drake & Josh, part Laurel & Hardy, part Ray Guy & Sebastian Janikowski.
Joey is The Big Toe — 5-foot-10 and 258.4 pounds (he says). Blake looks like a Blake – and is 6-2 and 182 (the game day roster says).
Joey is Oscar. He’s also a former top-notch soccer player from Lower Dauphin High School in Hummelstown, Pa., a 97-mile journey to Beaver Stadium for the junior with sophomore eligibility. (His dad played pro indoor soccer, his cousin Cody Webster was Big Ten punter of the year for Purdue in 2013, and his sister Madison played field hockey at Wake Forest.)
Blake is Felix. He is a true freshman from Smyra, Ga., 762 miles away from home and a full scholarshipped recruit who Franklin worked desperately to sign. (He likes to ski, his brother Tyler is a snapper at Northwestern and his folks were both collegiate swimmers – his mom at Kansas and his dad at North Carolina.)
BY THE NUMBERS
Their numbers are staggering:
Gillikin’s 44.5-yard average, based on his first 20 punts, is on track to be the best-ever for a single Penn State season. (Ralph Giacamarro’s 43.6-yard average, on 55 punts in 1981, is tops.) He’s been up to 7.2 yards better per punt than Penn State has been, on average, over the past four seasons.
When you Google “Joey Julius tackle Kent State video” you get 2,970 results in .35 seconds. And now, after Saturday’s Big Hit In The Big House, he averages one Internet-busting tackle every two games. First, against Kent State’s Raekwon James in the Sept. 3 season opener in Beaver Stadium:
Then it happened again on Saturday, in Michigan Stadium, when the Big Toe leveled Michigan returner Jourdan Lewis. America went wild:
Both Blake and Joey bring fun and excitement, shock and awe, anticipation and exaltation, to Penn State’s kicking game. (Not to dis or exclude place-kicker Tyler Davis, who never played high school football and is now 14-for-14 on his field goals attempts over the past two seasons. But…where’s the suspense in being perfect and perfectly oblivious?)
With Joey, you used to wonder where his squibs would go (past tense; see the stats below). And you always wonder who and when and how hard he’ll hit someone on one of his kickoffs (he did whiff once against Pitt).
With Blake, you wonder what kind of spin he’s going to put on the ball, whether it’ll be end-over-end, how much it’ll bounce back (or forward) and how close it’ll be to the 1-yard line.
Penn State’s offense has run 251 plays. Its defense has defended 286 plays. But Gillikin’s 20 punts and Julius’ 24 kick-offs have been, as a group, more exciting. And fulfilling. Gillikin’s accurate and exotic punting have been potential game-changers, allowing Penn State to win the field position battle when exchanging punts. Same deal on Julius’ kick-offs.
LIVELY, NOT AVERAGE
Gillikin is Blake lively. Of his 20 punts, he’s had a long of 69, with three touchbacks, five fair catches, eight inside the 20-yard line (not a typo), four over 50 yards. And zero blocked. Only five have been returned, for 57 yards (and that includes Jabrill Pepper’s 53-yarder on Saturday).
Julius is not your average kick-off Joe. Of his 24 kick-offs in 2016, only seven have been returned, for an average of 21 yards. Despite his sometimes wild and crazy guy reputation, only one of his kick-offs have has gone out of bounds this season. He’s had 16 touchbacks. And his average kick-off travels 61.958 yards.
Plus, since everyone has noticed, he knows how to tackle. In a big way.
And that includes Michigan’s Lewis, who was crushed by Joey on national TV. The hit went viral, but Lewis hardy felt sick about it. He turned the recognition into a pair of funny Tweets:
Jabrill making business decisions, without considering involving parties. https://t.co/TiHOfYV0eu
— Jourdan Lewis (@JourdanJD) September 25, 2016
I got hit by a nose tackle that can kick.
— Jourdan Lewis (@JourdanJD) September 25, 2016
Julius felt the after-effects of the hit as well, as he wobbled off the field following the tackle.
He was greeted enthusiastically by his teammates along the sidelines, as he made his way to toss his tee by some kicking nets.
Penn State was down 35-10 in the fourth quarter. But you can bet those guys all smiled.
