Advertisement
football Edit

Up Close & Personal: Size, athleticism make Kuntz a great catch for PSU

What can fans expect from tight end Zack Kuntz? His coach breaks it all down!

After committing to Penn St. in November 2016, Kuntz attended every Penn State home game this past season.
After committing to Penn St. in November 2016, Kuntz attended every Penn State home game this past season.
Advertisement

The most striking characteristic of Penn State early enrollee Zack Kuntz is summed up nicely by a nickname given to him by the children of Tim Bigelow, his high school coach. To Bigelow’s kids, Kuntz is simply “The Tall Guy.”

Listed at 6-foot-7, 235 pounds, Kuntz spent his high school career using his size and athletic ability to impose his will on opponents in the passing game. Bigelow’s offense at Camp Hill (Pa.) High was predicate on finding mismatches in opponents’ coverage schemes.

“If there’s a guy who’s 5-foot-7, 5-foot- 8 locked up man-to-man on Zack, we’re throwing him the ball, regardless of what the play call is,” said Bigelow, who ran Camp Hill’s offense for Kuntz’s first three years of high school before taking over as head coach for his senior season.

Ranked by Rivals.com as the 111th overall prospect in the Class of 2018 and the No. 4 tight end, Kuntz accumulated more than 2,700 receiving yards and 26 touchdowns during his career at Camp Hill. He racked up 1,057 yards in the passing game on only 40 catches, averaging 26.4 yards per catch, in a sensational senior year.

While the numbers in Kuntz’s final season at Camp Hill were certainly impressive, they were in some ways the byproducts of a more important change, as Kuntz’s body finally developed enough for him to transition into more of a traditional tight end role.

“He’s gotten thicker now,” Bigelow said. “He was real thin when he was younger, so we really couldn’t put him in a true tight end spot because he would get banged up by defensive ends and linebackers.

“As for the weight situation, I’m saying probably senior year is where he stopped growing vertically and started to grow horizontally. And that came from the weight room, that came from diet.”

Kuntz totaled more than 2,700 receiving yards during his high school career.
Kuntz totaled more than 2,700 receiving yards during his high school career.

While the physical aspect of his game took a while to fully develop, the athletic ability and the ball skills have always been there. Those attributes allowed Bigelow to use him in a variety of roles, and his flexibility created mismatches for defenders.

“He’s got the wheels. He’s got the vertical ability to jump. He’s got the arm reach,” Bigelow said. “I mean, he’s got all the tools. He can be a flex tight end. He can be a real tight end. He can be a split end.”

That description will no doubt remind many Penn State fans of Mike Gesicki, the All-Big Ten tight end who played his final game for the Lions in the Fiesta Bowl.

Before exhausting his eligibility, Gesicki established himself as one of the premier receiving tight ends in the country, totaling 1,242 yards and 14 touchdowns in his last two seasons.

Penn State coach James Franklin said he sees similarities between Kuntz and Gesicki. Franklin’s scouting report: “High school wide receiver, probably a little further along as a tight end than what Mike was, but both big-bodied guys who can really run. Kuntz, at 6-7, 215 pounds or so, came to camp and ran in the 4.6s for us, which is really impressive.”

The hole in Gesicki’s game when he enrolled at Penn State was that he hadn’t been called on to block much in high school, at least not the kind of blocking that tight ends are expected to do at the college level. Bigelow said Kuntz will have to make a similar transition.

“He’s really got to work on his blocking skills as a true tight end,” Bigelow said. “You know, to be able to go up against a defensive end... some of these defensive ends are men. They’re just monsters. He’s got to be able to go one-on-one with these guys when he’s not releasing down the field and he’s in pass protection.”

More than anything, though, the Nittany Lions are getting a truly elite athlete in Kuntz. In addition to the 4.6-second 40-yard dash that he ran at Penn State, he won the 110-meter hurdles event at the PIAA championship meet as a junior.

“At [his size], that’s unheard of,” Bigelow said. “In my experience with football... I don’t think I’ve ever seen stats like that, the ability to vertically push a field on the outside.

“In college, he’s really going to create tons of mismatches, especially as a flex tight end.”

Advertisement