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P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> Thompkins had claimed the starting job for a while as a redshirt freshman before losing it late in the season, and he 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 potential punt returners heading into the season, 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 – Thompkins was feeling con- fident prior to the game against the Zips, so much so that he thought he had a real- istic 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 attempt of the day, Thompkins slipped past two tacklers, darted to his left and found a lane all the way to the end zone. The first tackler had managed to grab a fistful of jersey before falling to the turf, but otherwise it didn't appear as though he 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 fi- nally start to have an impact in the one facet of the game where the program has been lacking in recent years: the return game. A year ago, the Nittany Lions fin- ished 11th in the Big Ten and 94th in the Football Bowl Subdivision with an aver- age of 6.47 yards per attempt and they were mediocre at returning kickoffs, too, ranking 10th in the Big Ten in that de- partment. As special teams coordinator Charles Huff said before the season, "That's one area going into summer camp that we feel we can make a big improve- ment in." The absence of any real breakaway threats in the return game obviously didn't do much to slow down Penn State's scoring binge last year. Despite their lack- luster averages on kick and punt returns, the Lions still finished third in the Big Ten in scoring at 37.6 points per game. Some have contended that the rise in offensive productivity throughout col- lege football has diminished the impor- tance of the return game. Punt returns are inherently risky, as the potential for a turnover is greater than on a typical of- fensive play. So there's an argument to be made that teams should focus on secur- ing the catch and not worry so much about generating yards or points on the runback because the offense will proba- bly be able to move the ball anyway. A year ago, for example, the Nittany Lions gained 6.5 yards per offensive play, so on average they needed only one play to pro- duce as many yards as they got on their average punt return. But coach James Franklin isn't totally buying it. He does concede that it's harder to produce long returns than it used to be because punters are better than ever both at generating hang time and guiding the ball to a particular spot on the field. But he doesn't necessarily believe that improvements in punting call for a more conservative approach to punt-re- turning. "We want to be aggressive," he said. "We want to make great decisions but then be aggressive in all three phases. ... Obviously for us, it's an area that's prob- ably been magnified [because] we haven't been as explosive or as productive as we would like to be. It probably is magnified in all of our minds just because we haven't seen that in a number of years here." The hope this year is that Thompkins will help change their fortunes. The PSU PUNT RETURNS YEAR-BY-YEAR TEAM TEAM LEADER YEAR ATT YDS AVG TD LG B10 RANK NAME ATT YDS AVG TD LG 2008 25 259 10.4 1 63 2nd Derrick Williams 18 169 9.4 1 63 2009 29 144 5.0 0 20 10th Graham Zug 8 26 3.2 0 10 2010 32 272 8.5 0 25 5th Justin Brown 15 77 5.1 0 15 2011 41 312 7.6 0 33 9th Justin Brown 27 220 8.1 0 33 2012 30 182 6.1 0 29 9th Jesse Della Valle 15 114 7.6 0 29 2013 23 184 8.0 0 31 8th Jesse Della Valle 18 156 8.7 0 31 2014 19 130 6.8 0 41 10th Jesse Della Valle 17 129 7.6 0 41 2015 31 221 7.1 0 58 12th DeAndre Thompkins 23 178 7.7 0 58 2016 30 194 6.5 0 59 11th John Reid 22 166 7.5 0 59 2017* 12 215 17.9 1 61 2nd DeAndre Thompkins* 10 202 20.2 1 61 TOTAL 272 2,113 7.7 2 63 – 173 1,437 8.3 2 63 * Based on first three games of season

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