The emergence of punt return specialist Daequan Hardy during the 2023 season gave Penn State a legitimate home-run threat for the first time in several seasons, turning an otherwise routine operation into must-watch TV.
But with Hardy out of the equation, off looking to find a home at the next level, Penn State and special teams coordinator Justin Lustig are left trying to find that same explosiveness that Hardy brought to the table each week. With no shortage of speedy options on the roster, this isn’t the worst problem in the world, but without many meaningful reps, it’s a more challenging problem to solve in the spring.
“That’s a hard one,” Penn State coach James Franklin said last week. “As you guys saw when Daequan Hardy started returning the ball for touchdowns, and you guys were all looking at me like I was crazy: ‘Why wasn’t he on the field earlier?’ The challenge is, for the most part, what you can evaluate is catch percentage and decision-making in practice. You just get very little live reps of a guy returning punts that the offensive coaches would be comfortable or defensive coaches would be comfortable (with).”
In fairness to Franklin it is a challenge to figure out who might be the best at one of the most violent plays in the game without hurting people in the process. So when it comes to things you can actually evaluate you’re left with “did he catch it?” and “did he make the right choice to try and catch it in the first place?” The rest of it – the ability to avoid tackles, read blocks and make people miss? You sort of learn about that ability on the fly.
And that means mostly learning about those abilities when it actually matters.
“So that’s a hard thing to evaluate,” Franklin said. “And then sometimes you may say it’s a live rep, and then the punter punts it so well it gets fair caught, so you don’t get the reps you really want. So that’s a challenge, figuring that out, unless there’s just somebody that’s just so obvious. And then I think the other thing that I think all of this taught us is, the explosive punt returns are critical. But also, going back to the catch percentage is also critical. Because, the ones you don’t catch that roll for 30 yards, all that yardage still adds up. So that’s a challenging thing to evaluate. But we got a lot of guys working at it. We’ll get some live work on that this summer once we have it narrowed down to maybe one or two guys.”
In spite of a lull around the COVID-19 season, Penn State has been surprisingly good at punt return the past half decade or so. Since 2017 the Nittany Lions have finished No. 16 or higher in punt return plays of 20+ yards five out of the last eight seasons. 2023 was a return to such a standing and the third-highest mark for Penn State over that span.
- 2023: 11th
- 2020: 12th
- 2019: 8th
- 2018: 16th
- 2017: 5th
While they may not spend much time actually returning the ball, Saturday’s Blue-White game should provide fans an inside look at who might get the call this upcoming season. How close they come to matching Hardy’s electric output an answer that only time – and opportunities – will tell.
