Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1490816
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 3 3 9 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M KEY LOSSES Barney Amor | P Averaged 44.28 yards, second best in school history, in his lone season as Penn State's starting punter. Jake Pinegar | K Finished his career ranked second in school history in career points (337), fourth in made field goals (49) and sev- enth in field goal percentage (73.1). Chris Stoll | LS Was a four-year starter, winning the Patrick Mannelly Award in 2022 as the nation's top long snapper. Parker Washington | PR Averaged 5.5 yards on 18 punt returns before seeing his season end after 10 games due to an injury. KEY RETURNEES Alex Bacchetta | P | R-Fr. Averaged 41.0 yards on 3 punts as a true freshman last fall. Gabriel Nwosu | P/KO | R-So. Earned touchbacks on 7 of 18 kickoffs and also punted 3 times with a 34.0- yard average. Sander Sahaydak | K | R-So. Hit 1 of 2 field goal tries and earned touchbacks on 4 of 15 kickoffs as a red- shirt freshman. Nicholas Singleton | KR | So. Averaged 24.9 yards on 14 kickoff re- turns, including a 100-yard runback for a touchdown against Rutgers. NEWCOMERS Alex Felkins | K | Sr. The first-team All-Ivy League selec- tion converted 36 of 54 field goal at- tempts in three seasons at Columbia before entering the transfer portal and joining the Nittany Lions in January as a preferred walk-on. Riley Thompson | P | Sr. Averaged 45.4 yards on 61 attempts at Florida Atlantic last fall, with a long punt of 71 yards. Because he started out his college career in his native Australia, Thompson will have only one season of eligibility at PSU even though he was named a Freshman All-American by The Athletic and College Football News in 2022. Changes Ahead For Penn State's Kicking Game 2023 Outlook In his first season at Penn State, special teams coordinator Stacy Collins did a nice job engineering a near-total rebuild of the Nittany Lions' specialist corps. As a reward, he'll get to do it all over again in 2023. The difference this year is that the Lions don't have any former starters on hand to take over their most critical jobs as they did this past year when senior Jake Pinegar stepped back into the placekicker position he had owned from 2018-20. Penn State dipped into the transfer portal in December to land senior kicker Alex Felkins and senior punter Riley Thompson. Felkins, who has two years of eligibility remaining, was 4 of 6 on field goal tries of 40 yards or longer last season at Columbia, including a school-record 53-yarder. Thompson, meanwhile, averaged 45.4 yards per punt at Florida Atlantic and had 15 go for more than 50 yards. What their arrival means for returnees Sander Sahaydak and Alex Bacchetta remains to be seen. As a redshirt freshman last fall, Sahaydak hit 1 of 2 field goals and was part of the mix on kickoffs before PSU opted to let Pinegar handle that job full time. Felkins' arrival, coupled with the return of redshirt sophomore walk-on Mitchell Groh, should make for a lively competition in spring practice and preseason camp. Thompson's acquisition is interesting in that PSU offered him a scholarship even though it already had a scholarship punter in Bacchetta. That might simply mean the coaches saw an opportunity they couldn't pass up when Thompson showed up in the portal. It might also mean they haven't yet seen what they need to see from Bacchetta to feel comfortable starting him as a redshirt freshman. Elsewhere, the Lions must replace veteran long snapper Chris Stoll, and they'll need to find a new punt returner with Parker Washington and Mitchell Tinsley moving on. The one area where PSU has a proven returnee is on kickoff returns, with Nicholas Singleton back for his sophomore year. Singleton showcased his ability with a 100-yard TD return at Rutgers last fall, but the Lions' backfield is looking a bit thin after Keyvone Lee's transfer, and the staff might pre- fer that someone else handle this job in 2023. — Matt Herb When Nicholas Singleton scored against Rutgers last November, it was only the third time since 1975 that a Penn State player returned a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown. PHOTO BY DANIEL ALTHOUSE 2023 LOOK AHEAD SPECIAL TEAMS