Blue White Illustrated

December 2022

Penn State Sports Magazine

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3 4 D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 2 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M Placekicker Jake Pinegar has boomed kickoffs and set personal field goal records during a comeback season with the Nittany Lions T o Jake Pinegar, one of the keys to placekicking is being in the right frame of mind during the handful of moments in which you're called upon to enter the game. Being in the right frame of mind, in turn, means always living in the present moment. "If you're focusing on tomorrow or focusing on yesterday, then you're just ruining today," the redshirt senior spe- cialist said. "As a team, we try to do our best to focus on what our job is each and every day. We know that if we do that, the results on Saturday will take care of themselves. "It's pretty easy for me personally, because you may only get one or two, maybe three kicks a game. It's very lim- ited, so you've got to be present and fo- cused on what you're doing each time you're out there. "That's the most important thing you can do as a kicker, I think, and as a team. It's something we preach and something we try to live by." By the time the season ended, Pinegar was seeing the field a little more often than just two or three times per game. In addition to handling field goals and extra point tries, he inherited the Nit- tany Lions' kickoff job full-time in Oc- tober after some early-season struggles by the team's other kickers. During the second half of the regu- lar season, Pinegar helped improve the Lions' performance in that underap- preciated discipline, with 31 of his 46 kickoffs landing in the end zone for touchbacks. In recent years, Penn State has been one of the better teams in the country at neutralizing opposing kick returners. That has mostly been due to Pinegar's predecessor, Jordan Stout. In his three- year career at PSU, Stout had 66 touch- backs on 83 kickoffs. Stout is now punting for the Balti- more Ravens, having been drafted in the fourth round last April. Knowing that the Lions had a big vacancy to fill, Pinegar spent a big part of his offseason sharpening that aspect of his game. "It was something that I knew I could do, something that I wanted to do, something that I worked on a lot in the offseason," he said. "I knew I had the leg strength and the ability. It was just a matter of get- ting extra practice to make sure it was consistent. That's what I tried to do this whole offseason, this whole season — just try to be consistent with every- thing, including kickoffs." Pinegar's steady improvement was perhaps most apparent in Penn State's 45-14 victory at Indiana on Nov. 5. In Jaylin Lucas, the Hoosiers boast one of the Big Ten's top kickoff-return special- ists. Lucas was leading the league with a 28.2-yard average through eight games and had scored on a 93-yard runback against Rutgers in October. Against Penn State, however, Lucas didn't have much of a chance to impact the game. Six of Pinegar's 7 kickoffs went for touchbacks, and Lucas mis- handled the one kick he did attempt to return, recovering his own fumble but managing only a 10-yard runback to the 14-yard line. Coach James Franklin said that Pin- egar may have had a bit of extra motiva- tion on a blustery day in Bloomington. "I was talking to Jake a couple times after his kicks when I kind of jogged down to congratulate him on doing a good job," Franklin said. "I guess [Lu- M AT T H E R B | M AT T. H E R B @ O N 3 . C O M Playing The Long Game Pinegar returned to a starting role this season after giving way to Jordan Stout as a redshirt junior last fall. During the regular season, Pinegar hit 12 of 16 field goal attempts, including a pair of 50-yarders. PHOTO BY DANIEL ALTHOUSE

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