Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1509432
3 0 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 3 I t was a whirlwind journey that brought Riley Thompson more than 10,000 miles from home to punt for the Penn State football team. Thompson, a 23-year-old senior, is originally from the Australian coastal city of Melbourne. He played his first colle- giate season at Florida Atlantic, where he was named a Freshman All-American by The Athletic and College Football News, even though he held junior eligibility as far as the NCAA was concerned. Following his debut season at the Boca Raton school, Thompson transferred to Penn State. Throughout spring practice and preseason camp, he competed with redshirt freshman Alex Bacchetta for the first-team punting job that opened up with Barney Amor's graduation. His approach has been described as rugby-style and is different than the tra- ditional spiral style with which Penn State fans are familiar. But it's been working out fine, even if his stats haven't been as spectacular as those of two recent PSU punters, Blake Gillikin and Jordan Stout, both of whom have gone on to play in the NFL. "We're always work- ing on things in practice," Thompson said. "We're al- ways looking to get better. We've worked on the things we need to work on to get better for next week, [and] we're always building." Through Penn State's bye week, Thompson ranked ninth in the Big Ten with an average of 42.6 yards per attempt. Only 5 of his punts had been downed in- W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M G R E G P I C K E L | G R E G . P I C K E L @ O N 3 . C O M A LEG UP Punter Riley Thompson came a long way to fill a key vacancy in Penn State's kicking game Through Penn State's first five games, Thompson was averaging 42.6 yards on 18 punting attempts. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL