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Danny Pasquariello pushing him all through camp and all through the season. Having that senior leadership from those guys and really developing him has been really helpful to our team." Equally helpful has been the perform- ance of the other kicking units. The Nit- tany Lions made the kicking game a high priority during the off-season, and that work paid dividends during the first half of the season. Tapped to return punts, cornerback John Reid was averaging 7.8 yards per attempt and had popped a few long ones, including a 59-yarder against Pitt that helped Penn State climb back into the game after spotting the Panthers a two-touchdown lead. Place-kicker Tyler Davis had hit 10 of 10 field goal at- tempts and 19 of 19 PATs to remain per- fect in his two-year career, while kickoff specialist Joey Julius had put 21 of his 37 attempts into the end zone for touch- backs and had become something of a folk hero for his aggressive approach to kick coverage. The changes haven't been seamless, of course. There have been penalties, like the holding call on the opening kickoff that got everything rolling downhill at Michigan. And there have been other breakdowns at times, such as the opening punt return against the Wolverines, in which Jabrill Peppers came 9 yards from scoring a touchdown, falling to the turf only after tripping over his own feet. But the overall performance this year has been a significant departure from the past two seasons, in which the kicking units were often liabilities. In 2014 the Nittany Lions ranked in the bottom half of the Big Ten standings in punting (ninth, 34.3 yards per attempt), punt return average (10th, 6.8 yards) and kickoff coverage (13th, 36.4 yards). The only areas where they excelled were field goal and PAT accuracy, ranking third in the former (82.8 percent) and tying for first in the latter (100 percent). The Lions' success in those last two categories had to do with the presence of talented senior kicker Sam Ficken. When Ficken graduated after ending the 2014 season with a walk-off extra point against Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl, Penn State's kicking became more erratic, albeit in a strangely low-stakes way. With Julius and Davis sharing the kicking du- ties in 2015, the Lions' success rate on field goals – 85.7 percent – was the Big Ten's best, but its success rate on extra points – 88.6 percent – was the league's worst. The discrepancy between those numbers was hard to figure out, but there was less ambiguity elsewhere. The punt- ing continued to be a problem, with the team's net average of 35.7 yards ranking 11th in the conference, and Penn State ranked 12th in punt returns at 7.1 yards per attempt and eighth in kickoff cover- age at 39 yards. The difficulties on special teams were among the most vivid manifestations of the depth problems that plagued Penn State in the wake of the NCAA sanctions. But as the scholarship restrictions have been rolled back, the team's manpower has steadily improved, to the point where the coaching staff could afford to give full scholarships to two specialists in its 2016 recruiting class: Gillikin and place-kicker Alex Barbir, who is red- shirting this season. With so much young talent at his disposal, special teams coordinator Charles Huff was feeling good about the direction of the kicking units going into the season. "I feel like a parent at Christmas who knows what's in the box that the kids are going to get a chance to open," Huff said in August. "We're excited." That enthusiasm has proven justified. With the second half of the season under

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