Blue White Illustrated

S P R I N G P R A C T I C E W R A P 4 How are the place-kicker and punter positions shap- ing up? The place-kicker situation appears to be about as good as can be expected giv- en that the Lions are set to replace the fourth-leading scorer in school history with a player who has never attempted a kick in a college game. Joey "Big Toe" Julius by all accounts had a very good spring. In addition to acquiring the team's best nickname, he survived the coaching sta9's hazing rituals, having performed well even when he was being pelted with tennis balls in Holuba Hall and being eyed by 68,000 people at the Blue-White Game, the largest crowd the former Lower Dauphin High soccer player had ever performed in front of. During the pregame kicking competition with Tyler Davis, Julius punched a 55- yarder home, and it looked as though it would have cleared the crossbar from another 5 or 10 yards out. But the attempts to approximate game day pressure were just that – approxi- mations. There's no telling what will happen to a rookie kicker when the games actually count. As special teams coordinator Charles Huff noted, "When you have a rookie anything, there are going to be growing pains. It's magni- fied when you're a specialist because it's black or white – you either did or you didn't." Finding a capable kicker is an ab- solutely crucial matter for the Nittany Lions, as some of last year's o9ensive de7ciencies may linger into the 2015 season. Sam Ficken bailed them out re- peatedly in 2014, ranking eighth in the Big Ten in scoring even though the Lions 7elded the conference's lowest-scoring o9ense. This year, the team looks to have a very good defense, and it de7- nitely has a very young o9ense. That combination is likely to produce a lot of close games – games in which a 7eld goal could make the di9erence. Hu9 likes Julius's con7dence and un- 8appable demeanor, which stem from his success on the soccer 7eld, where he was a Division I prospect before decid- ing to pursue football. Said the coach, "He believes wholeheartedly that he can make any kick." It looks as though we're going to 7nd out soon enough whether that's true. At punter, the Lions don't appear to be any closer to choosing a starter than they were at the start of spring practice. Robby Liebel averaged 36.8 yards in the spring game, while Danny Pasquariello averaged 43.7. Neither displayed the consistency this spring that Franklin wanted to see. For a team that 7gures to do its share of punting in the fall, that's a concern. 5 Where are the Lions likely to make their biggest im- provement? You have to like how things are shaping up in the back7eld. Scott had the most dazzling moment of the Blue-White Game with his long touchdown run. With all due respect to Bill Belton and Zach Zwinak, it's hard to picture either one of them making that play. Scott's moment in the spotlight illus- trates how deep the Lions suddenly ap- pear to be at a position that hasn't been a strength since the waning days of the Paterno era. For all the breakaway po- tential he displayed on his TD run, Scott isn't going to be the starter when Penn State opens its season in September against Temple, and he might not even be the backup. The guy Franklin seemed most enthused about in his postgame presser was Scott's fellow redshirt freshman Mark Allen. "I know today Nick Scott made a cou- ple of big runs, and that's a positive. I'm really happy to see that," Franklin said. "But I think overall, Mark Allen had a re- ally strong spring. Johnathan Thomas [is another] guy we are really excited about, and I am hoping he will be ready to go by camp. We've got some guys coming in as well who I think are going to be able to compete and create some competitive environments in practice in Saquon [Barkley] and Andre [Robinson], so we are excited about those guys, too." All 7ve of the running backs who will be vying for carries in relief of Akeel Lynch will have freshman eligibility this fall, so if there's a problem here, it's that the Lions may be a little too deep for their own good. The abundance of tal- ented freshman running backs will test the coaches' resourcefulness as they try to 7gure out how to keep everyone hap- py. But it's also a sign that the program is on its way back. A couple of years ago, this team didn't have an abundance of anything. ■

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