Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1276571
but I think it's a natural human element for guys to think, Oh they're not going to kick it to us this time. Then the kid mishits it or they do kick it to you, and you're not quite as on-point. That's not OK, but I just think that happens. So I think we have a lot of guys who maybe people don't know about yet, but I've seen them in practice and I think they're really talented. From a numbers and a statistical standpoint, I think we'll see improvement just because people will kick to us more. We have two goals. Own the football, do not give up any possessions. We did that, which was a major improvement. And no penalties, which is unrealistic. You're never going to have no penalties, but it really means minimize penalties. We're going to try to have none. It's just the best guy. Who's the best guy? Oftentimes, the kick returner has a different skill set than the punt returner, but if you have a guy like K.J., who's the best of both, we're going to put the ball in our best player's hands. BWI How does the depth that's been built up throughout the program change your approach to using starters? LORIG When I took the job, part of our discussion was that every starter besides O-line, D-line, quarterback, could start on two special teams, just as a base rule. That doesn't mean that I'm going to do that. It really depends on how good that next guy is. The key element and the reason it's important to have that rule is that the players are watching. If Micah Parsons doesn't start on any special teams but he's one of the best linebackers in the country, are special teams important? So then the guy who should be on, if he sees Micah is on there, he's going to [under- stand] that it is important, and he's going to approach it differently. So it's a management thing. I'm not going to be stupid. I don't want our special teams to be great and our of- fense to not be, or our defense to not be. I want to support our offense and our defense. I want our special teams to be just as important. A lot of special teams coordinators, they want to make it more important. That's not me at all. I just want it to be as important. The difference in special teams is that you can play younger guys because it's so much simpler. There are fewer mov- ing parts, so guys can play earlier be- cause they don't have to learn and think as much. And one of the pillars of my special teams philosophy is to be ex- tremely simple. So that allows those younger guys to play sooner. BWI Can you break down the punt-re- turn options in Jahan Dotson and Mar- quis Wilson, and are you considering anyone else for that role? LORIG Jahan did have five or six last year. And going back and watching him, I had kind of forgotten because K.J. gets all the fanfare, but he was really good when he had the ball in his hands. Marquis was really good as well. He didn't have any in games, but he was really good. We start every practice with a five- minute daily circuit special teams pe- riod. And so those guys have had literally thousands of reps returning punts, maybe not live in games, but in front of my eyes and Coach Franklin's eyes. So I have a ton of confidence in those guys. I think they're both very, very talented. Another guy who approached me and said, hey, watch my tape, I almost played offense when I came here, is Lamont Wade. He's a really dynamic athlete who approached me about it. I haven't seen him do it as much, but he's a guy who, if Coach Franklin is good with it, we'll take a look at. And then we're always going to look at the incoming freshmen. Certainly the receivers, the running backs and those kinds of things. I think we'll have plenty of talent back there. It's just a matter of who's going to take that thing over. BWI Do you feel like you've sorted out how heavy of a load you want Jordan Stout to handle? Do kickers get tired? Is there a pitch count for them? LORIG Yeah, they do get tired. It's just like a pitch count for a pitcher. One of the things that I've spent a lot of my off- season studying is, what is that? And re- ally, a lot of times, it's keeping them from themselves. A guy like Jordan Stout is such a com- petitor, such a winner. Every day he goes out to practice, he's going to be trying to win the dang national championship. Well, you've got to manage that. So how do you manage that? That's what I spent a lot of time studying. In a perfect world, usually you have a kicker, a punter and a field goal guy. But the best guy is going to start at each one. So my expectation is that there's zero drop-off. I'm not going to have Jordan be the punter and then we have a big drop- off on kickoff. That's not going to happen. The other thing that gets lost a little bit is that Jake Pinegar has improved. He went from I think 68 percent on field goal [as a freshman] to 92 percent [last year], which is absolutely phenomenal. That's points on the board. That is a crit- ical, critical, critical thing. And it had nothing to do with me. It was all him, his mentality, his work ethic. Jordan gets talked about so much, and I get why, but I feel like that piece was lost. That was a big weapon for us last year. And really, Jake can kick the long ones, too, just so everybody knows. It was kind of neck and neck, and it was like, I think Jordan hit one more than Jake or something, so we said, well, the numbers say this. But Jake can certainly do it, and I thought his improvement was highly under-reported and really fantastic. BWI Is there an actual hard-and-fast number in your mind for field goals be- tween Pinegar and Stout? LORIG Only because it's easy to re- member, 32 and in is Pinegar, 32 and out is Stout. You chart that during camp. And the numbers just showed that barely [last year]. Honestly, even inside the 32-yard line, they're really close. It was like Jordan had one or two more outside of that range than Jake, and we really wanted Jake to have great im- provement and be really a pinpoint ac- curate shooter, like a SWAT guy. And I think that helped him. It was Coach Franklin's idea, and I think it was part of Jake's improvement. He didn't >>