Blue White Illustrated

M A T T   H E R B | M A T T @ B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M S E P T E M B E R 6 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 9 Penn State serves notice with TD on punt return The punt was low and short, and Derrick Williams was already at full speed by the time the first would-be Wisconsin tackler got anywhere near him. Williams blew right by him, then blew by all 10 of his teammates as if they were standing still, coasting into the end zone to give Penn State a 16-0 lead in the second quarter of its visit to Madison in October 2008. The way the game was unfolding, it seemed that Williams' 63-yard return might be the start of a big day for the spe- cial teams units. Badgers punter Brad Nort- man had shanked an earlier attempt, and Williams, well, they didn't call him D- Wheels for nothing. But Williams only got two more opportu- nities that evening and was forced to fair catch both. And, as it turned out, those fair catches would prove to be much more in- dicative of Penn State's future than his long return in the first half. The Nittany Lions didn't return another punt for a touchdown all season. Nor did they return one for a touchdown in the season that followed. Or in the season that followed that season, or in the six subsequent seasons. Heading into last Saturday's opener against against Akron, it had been nearly a decade since the Nittany Lions had gotten a touchdown on a punt return. During that span, they had amassed 244 attempts, and not a single one had ended with someone trotting into the end zone holding a foot- ball aloB triumphantly. Justin Brown hadn't gotten there, nor had Graham Zug, Drew Astorino, Jesse Della Valle, Gregg Garrity or John Reid, to name a few of the more prominent players to fill that high- profile role in the kicking game. The string of goose eggs had grown so long that play- ers on this year's team were talking about it among themselves as they auditioned for the starting job in preseason camp. "That's always been something that's been talked about," said redshirt junior wideout DeAndre Thompkins, one of sev- eral candidates to replace the injured Reid heading into the 2017 season. "Who's going to break it?" Thompkins had held the starting job for a while as a redshirt freshman but lost it aBer a costly fumble against Michigan and never really got back into the mix until Reid's injury resulted in an off-season casting call. At least five players were thought to be under consideration as po- tential punt returners heading into the sea- son, and Thompkins emerged victorious, with safety Troy Apke backing him up. The most experienced of the contenders for the job – he had returned punts and kicks in high school before doing the same at Penn State – he was feeling confident heading into the opener, so much so that he thought he had a realistic shot at ending the drought. "I knew I had a good chance, and I trusted my guys a lot," he said. "So I had that chip on my shoulder that I knew that I had to break it this game." That's just what he did. On his second at- tempt of the day, Thompkins slipped two tacklers, darted to his leB and found a lane all the way to the end zone. The first tackler had managed to grab a fistful of jersey be- fore falling to the turf, but otherwise it did- n't appear as though Thompkins was touched during his 61-yard return. In making such a sudden impact, Thompkins served notice that the steady improvement in Penn State's overall ath- leticism and playmaking ability may have an impact in the one facet of the game where the program had been lacking. A year ago, the Nittany Lions finished 11th in the Big Ten and 94th in the Football Bowl Subdivision with an average of 6.47 yards per punt attempt. But thanks to Thomp- kins, who also had a 42-yarder vs. the Zips, they are first in the conference heading into the Pitt game and tied for seventh in the FBS at 26.0 yards. "I thought he looked really confident [in the opener], and that was a combination of a lot of things," coach James Franklin said. "I think he's a much more experienced player at this point in his career. I think [as- sistant coach] Terry Smith has done a great job with those guys as well. … It's going to be really, really significant for us if we can really become a threat in the return game. We showed some of that today." Given the length of the Nittany Lions' drought and the long hours that Thomp- kins devoted to ending it, it was under- standable that there was some relief mixed in with the exhilaration aBer his early score against the Zips. Following the game, his thoughts were not just on the touchdown but on all those punts he fielded in practice. Said Thompkins, "All of the work that you put in in the off-season, all the punt-return catches that you did when nobody was around, all the training, all the film and everything – just knowing that that [led to] a touchdown on the scoreboard, it's a sigh of relief once you pass the goal line." Thompkins races past the Akron punt-coverage unit for a 61-yard touchdown in Penn State's sea- son opener. It was the first time since 2008 that the Lions re- turned a punt for a score. Photo by Steve Manuel

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