Blue White Illustrated

Rutgers Pregame

Penn State Sports Magazine

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efit ratio in playing them. Is it burning their redshirt or holding them for the following year and will they be available as fiBh-year guys? You had to replace the holder last week, and that's never as easy a job as people think it is. How much do you worry about having to do that? And how much work does a guy like Billy Fessler have to put in to do that? First of all, Billy Fessler has been doing it all year long, so that helps. But you're exactly right. The relationship between a snapper, a holder and a kicker is really, really important. People look at it as three separate things, but it really is a whole unit. Wherever there is a bad punt or whenever there is a bad kick, the kicker gets all of the blame. When he makes it, he gets too much of the fame. The snapper has a big part of it. The holder has a big part of it. And the kicker has a big part of it. So you want to keep that as consistent as possible. Making a change there is not ideal, but Billy is so respected in our program. As a vet, my relationship with Billy is really good. I really, really have grown to love and respect the guy. He's one of the guys who has a role on our team and has really embraced the role. I'm just really, really pleased and happy with him. He did a great job stepping in. I will tell you, my conversation with them right before that final kick of the game probably was not in the "Coach- ing 101" handbook, because right before he goes out there, I bring over [Tyler] Yazijuan and Tyler [Davis] and Billy. I said, "Look, if this is a bad snap or bad hold, don't kick it. Just fall on the ball." Because the last thing you want to do in that situation is to have a low kick [that] gets blocked. That's not the conversa- tion you want to have with a new holder that inspires confidence right before they're going on the field. But I did think it was an important message that they needed to know. So I struggled back and forth with whether to do it or not. We did it, and Yaz looked at me, kind of rolled his eyes and waved me off and ran out there, delivered a great snap. Billy put it down, and Tyler does what he does, which is knock it through the uprights. So it's great that you're at a point right now where I can have conversations that I think our guys need to hear, and it doesn't affect their confidence. It's stuff that they need to be aware of, but it doesn't affect their confidence in them doing their job. So that's really good. I'm really proud. If you can't tell by how I'm talking, I'm really proud of Billy Fessler, who is a guy that's taken a role and run with it, how he is on the scout team, how he is at practice, how he is as a holder and backup quarterback. He has been awesome. He's been awesome. So I'm really proud of him. And those roles don't get a whole lot of attention, but we talk all the time on our team about how all these different roles are critical to our success. We have differ- ent roles, but they're all critical to us going where we need to go. He's a great example of that. Has the success you've had this year and the winning streak had any im- pact with respect to recruiting? Are there more kids showing interest? Is it helping you at all in that area that you can tell? We're so far along in the process for this year, and we just don't have a lot of scholarships for this year. It is having an effect, I think, with visits and things like that and guys calling us and showing more interest. But I think where it will have its biggest impact is in 2018, be- cause the 2017 class is pretty much done, except for a few spots. … Sev- enty-five percent of the recruiting process is done based off of junior or sophomore years. So it will have an ef- fect. How significant the effect is, I don't know. I think it will show up more in years to come, especially in the 2018 class. Miles Sanders has been a guy who has provided a spark on special teams. We saw Irvin Charles back there on kickoffs on Saturday. When did Irvin start working in there? Are you going to try to use him here and there? Irvin has been back there pretty much all year long. Irvin Charles has a very, very bright future. He is talented, tal- ented, talented, maybe the most tal- ented wide receiver I've ever been around. We all saw the catch that he had [against Minnesota] and what he was able to do with it once he got the ball in his hands. But there's a lot more that goes into it than that. So we're looking for other ways to get the ball in his hands and give him a chance to make the play. But Miles is our guy back there. But we want to continue creating op- portunities for other guys and develop- ing other guys. Obviously, that one [kickoff return against Indiana] didn't go as planned. But he is a big, strong, talented guy. N O V E M B E R 1 6 , 2 0 1 6 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 13 PSUtixman@gmail.com www.PSUtixman.com Get your PSU Football Tickets at go t ti cke t s? k c i t t t e k PSUtixman@gmail.com .PSUtixman.com www www.PSUtixman.com at PSU Football T Get your k c i t t o PSUtixman@gmail.com .PSUtixman.com PSU Football T Get your s t s e k

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