Special teams success, culture a priority for Nittany Lions

Alex Bacchetta wanted to find a program that appreciated his value.

A Class of 2022 prospect out of Westminster in Georgia, Bacchetta is the No. 1 ranked punter in his class by Kohl's Kicking. When the staff at Penn State treated him like he was the No. 1 ranked linebacker, running back, or safety, he knew he was in the right place.

"I think the main thing is you really have to see how much they value special teams," Bacchetta said. "How much importance do they place on it at practice, for example?

"How much do they respect you as a person? Do they treat you and your family, your parents, the same as they would treat the five-star quarterback? That says a lot. And I know Penn State, that's a prime example of Penn State. They treat specialists the same as they would treat offensive and defensive players. So that's the main thing that caught my eye."

By all accounts, Bacchetta's perception is not limited to a recruiting pitch. Instead, it's a reflection of the value head coach James Franklin and his staff continue to place on that phase of the game. Special teams coach Joe Lorig feels it too.

"I wouldn't have come here if I didn't know that he cared about special teams and really thought that could impact the game," Lorig said. "So, starting with him, I think his buy-in has been huge and obviously very valuable, and has a huge influence."

In some ways, Lorig feels that, with his appointment shortly after the end of the 2018 season, there was an acknowledgment that the Nittany Lions had some problems to solve in that phase of the game.

They've addressed those with a system that involves all of the minds on Penn State's coaching staff, rather than just leaving Lorig on an island to figure everything out himself.

"Everyone knows that I'm the special teams coordinator and we know that," Lorig said. "But the way that the system's built, all of the staff has tremendous influence in it and tremendous involvement in it. And so it's quite different. It's just like offense, defense. Everybody has a position, everybody has positional meetings and then that's filtered down to the players."

The results in most areas of special teams play would indicate that Lorig's influence has made a positive impact, even in a bizarre season in 2020 that made practices tumultuous.

In most cases last year, Lorig didn't have his entire unit on the practice field together at the same time.

"Another huge, huge, huge thing that was different than offense and defense that was really hard, is we had split practices," he said. "So we had our ones and our threes, and our twos and our fours. That's fine for O and D, but your one guy on defense might be starting on kick return, and the two guy on defense might start on kick return, but they're not at the same practice. So that was really, really, really challenging. That was different."

Despite those obstacles, Penn State ranked in the top 50 percent nationally in four out of six efficiency metrics designed by Football Outsiders to measure the success of various special teams units. Yet there will still be a few things Lorig and the rest of the Nittany Lions staff will like to clean up for 2021, and, it's clear that those areas will be priorities in the leadup to the new campaign.

Penn State missed 7 of the 18 field goals it attempted last season, a heavy departure from the 87 percent success rate posted by Jake Pinegar and Jordan Stout last season. Additionally, Penn State's kickoff unit was less efficient than it was a season ago.

With some normality likely to return to the practice field in the leadup to the 2021 season, Lorig and the rest of the Nittany Lions coaching staff will be looking to build on the successes and address the failures together, in accordance with the way they've built their system.

"It starts at the very top with Coach Franklin," Lorig said. "Go from there, to the staff, including the support staff, and then to the players, and I think there's been a tremendous trickle-down effect and I'm very, very proud of the culture that we have here now."

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