Blue White Illustrated

T H E 2 0 1 7 S E A S O N coaching staff knew going into the season they had an experienced player in the 5- foot-11, 187-pound Thompkins, and that was no small consideration. There's more than just a learning curve when it comes to returning punts. Would-be returners also have to overcome the natural instinct for self-preservation. They have to find a way to deal with the fear that they're going to get lit up by an unblocked de- fender as soon as the ball lands in their hands. That takes time. "I had that feeling at first when I was first returning punts," Thompkins said. "All I can say is, really, just grow up. Get- ting hit is part of the game. It happens to everybody. Everybody gets their shot. So you've just got to realize that it's going to happen. You've just got to make a play re- gardless. The ball is in the air and you're like, 'If I get hit, I get hit, and if I don't, I'm going to try to score a touchdown.' " Another issue, Thompkins said, is that punt returning is improvisational by na- ture, so it's hard to learn by watching more-experienced players. Once the ball is in your hands, all the film study goes out the window. "It really is backyard football," he said. "Once you catch the ball, it's kind of like, just get away from everybody who's try- ing to tackle you. It's like playing tag, ba- sically. There's not really anybody in the NFL that I watch consistently catch punts. I do watch punt return at the NFL level but there's not really a guy that I sin- gle out that I watch or model." Even so, Thompkins enjoyed some suc- cess when he took over the job early in the 2015 season. His 58-yard return in the Nittany Lions' home opener vs. Buffalo was their longest since Williams' touch- down against the Badgers in 2008. But there were some miscues, too, and one of them proved costly. In the Lions' home finale against Michigan, Thomp- kins fumbled a punt on his own 9-yard line late in the third quarter. The Wolver- ines pounced on the loose ball, setting up the decisive touchdown in a 28-16 vic- tory. It was the end of Thompkins' season as a punt returner. Garrity and Brandon Polk shared the job in the team's final two games. The following year, Reid emerged as the surprise winner of Penn State's punt-re- turn tryouts, with Thompkins getting only one return opportunity all season. But this past off-season, he reclaimed the job, part of a strong overall effort that also resulted in his rise to the top of the depth chart at the Z-receiver position. Franklin attributed that success to his continuing maturation. Said the coach, "He's a much more experienced player at this point in his career." Franklin's vote of confidence was one of the factors in Thompkins' re-emergence as a key special teams player, but it wasn't the only one. "It's not just exciting to have him believe in me, but also just [to believe in] myself. To go out there and know that I'm a complete receiver, a complete punt returner, and a complete football player, to go out here and prove it to myself – that holds more value than anyone can ever believe," Thompkins said. "So I go out there to try and prove my best to myself, and then whoever comes after that comes." Given the length of the Nittany Lions' drought and the long hours that he de- voted to ending it, it was understandable that there was some relief mixed in with the exhilaration after 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 prac- tice. 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." ■ If you've got a football that needs carrying, you could do a lot worse than to give it to Saquon Barkley. The junior running back has excelled in Penn State's offense no matter how the Nit- tany Lions have gotten him the ball, as evidenced by the 2,879 rushing yards and 804 receiving yards he had amassed in his career heading into PSU's Big Ten opener at Iowa. In the first three games of their season, the Lions tried an- other way to get the ball in his hands. Barkley has been the team's starting kickoff returner, aver- aging 26.8 yards on four attempts. Coach James Franklin's rationale for using Barkley on kick- offs is that Penn State's offense is predicated on pre- snap reads by the quarterback rather than plays that are designed to get the ball to a predetermined person. In the Lions' system, the defensive alignment determines whether Barkley will get a touch on any given play. But on kickoffs, he is all but certain to handle the ball, barring a touchback or a short kick to one of the up backs. "We very rarely ever just call a run," Franklin said. "De- pending on what the defense does, we could pull the ball every sin- gle time and the quarter- back could keep it or put it on the edge. The positive is, when Saquon Nittany Lions turn to Barkley to boost kickoff returns Steve Manuel

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