Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/496147
it was magnified and more of a priority because of the situation we were in [last season]. But there is some flexibility, more with the Mike [position] and what we call the Will. They're typically box players. We call the Sam our field 'backer, which is different than what a lot of people call it. A lot of people would say the Sam and Mike are box 'backers and Will is to the field; we term it a little bit differently. So that field 'backer, is probably not as interchange- able as the two box 'backers are. Now if you go spread, that typical box 'backer needs to come out of the box anyway because they're in four-wide or you're in nickel or dime. Although I think Bell is a guy who could possibly grow into a box 'backer down the road. ON JOEY JULIUS He has been good. He has had a really, really good spring. He's got a strong leg, he has tremen- dous confidence. What I really like about Joe is that he's not your typical kicker. What I mean by that is he was a high-level soccer player. So he is fiercely competitive. Actually, when the pressure is on him, that's when he likes it the most. Talking to Coach [Bob] Warming [of the Penn State soccer team], he was a guy who a lot of people were recruiting all over the country [in soccer]. That's what I probably I like most about him. He's fiercely competi- tive, he has a really, really strong leg. When he hits the ball, it just sounds different from the other guys. It jumps off his foot and, he's been really accu- rate. A lot of times, the power guys don't have the consistency. He's really shown both. ON PUNTER/KICKER SCHOLAR- SHIPS There are a couple of different models. The model has changed a little bit. It used to be no scholarship kickers out of high school. You'd have a bunch come in and [the scholarship would go to] whoever earned it. Here's the issue: If you make a mistake on a kicker out of high school, where does he go? If a safety isn't as good as you thought, he can move to linebacker. You have a line- backer who maybe is a step slow, he can move to D-end. A D-end who's a step slow, he can move to D-tackle. But where do you put the kicker when he can't kick? That's another thing we want to do. We want to be able to recruit guys who can at least be serviceable [at another position]. If they're a kicker, they can back up the punter. If you're a punter, you can back up the kicker. Most of those guys did that in high school any- way. So that is a little bit of an answer. What I'm saying is that if they can't do that, there's nowhere else to put them, so you've got to be careful. The only time you scholarship a guy out of high school is if he's a no-brainer, No. 1 kicker in the country, he looks differ- ent than everybody else you've had at camp or gone to see him in person. That's when you probably move into that category. If not, we'll have snap- pers, kickers and punters as guys who will earn scholarships once they're on campus. Every once in a while, you find a guy of that caliber and you feel com- fortable making that move, so you make a move. A P R I L 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 13