Penn State Football in Love with Amor as Nittany Lions Look to Stabilize Special Teams

Of all the things that has made Penn State a formidable program in recent years, few of them have been as important as the Nittany Lions’ ability to punt, flipping the field and giving opponents long odds to finish a possession with a touchdown.

Between the likes of Jordan Stout and Blake Gillikin, the Nittany Lions have been able to produce back-to-back NFL caliber punters that have dug Penn State out of many a hole with the Nittany Lions backed up deep in their own territory.

Now with both players gone the question heading into Penn State’s 2022 season was if that sort of safety net could ever really be replaced. After starting out the James Franklin era with shaky punting, the Nittany Lions could ill afford to see one of their recent strengths turn into a weakness.

And then Barney Amor entered the transfer portal following the 2020 season and teleported himself to State College, waiting for this moment to finally swing his leg and let the ball fly through the air, landing softly deep behind enemy lines.

It has been a prayer answered for Penn State so far this season as Amor has landed 10 punts inside opponents’ 20-yard line and seen seven of his punts boom for more than 50 yards. On Saturday afternoon, Amor sailed a 48-yard punt into the ground, it bolted nearly 90-degrees to the right and out at Central Michigan’s three, just feet from the end zone.

That’s not the first time it has happened either. Against Ohio it was another punt that landed just inches from the end zone. Again on Saturday three of Amor’s four punts landed at or inside Central Michigan’s 10. If you wanted to give the opponent a long field, you couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

It does bring up the question though if Amor is surprised by his own success. Not the punting itself, but a bit like golf you send the ball in the air and how it lands, and where it lands is always every so slightly up to chance. You can get a ball to spin backwards and forwards, but to the side absolutely perfectly? Even that has to surprise a guy.

“I would say it’s like 70% skill, 30% everything else?” Amor said on Saturday with a smile. “How wet the ground is and everything like that.”

Of course Amor’s success living on the edge comes with the potential downside as long punts could find their way into the end zone. But hey, until that happens all you’re seeing is punting perfection.

“It could be completely the other story, right?” Amor said of punts that pin teams deep. “It could be you guys asking me why is the ball going in the end zone every single time? But yeah, it’s an array of things. I mean, these are things we practice. It’s like you guys watch when I warm up. It’s how I warm up. It’s the first thing to do is that backspin doing that three, four or five, six times a week, it all adds up in the end.

“It’s one of those things where you control what you can control. So for me my job is to put the ball inside the 10. So if that ball lands anywhere inside the 10 that’s me just doing my job.”

Can’t argue with that, and Penn State certainly doesn’t mind it either.