By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian
MORGANTOWN —
In West Virginia University kicking circles, you normally get what you don’t see.
It begins back in what rapidly is becoming the dark ages of the sport, back to the early 1990s when Don Nehlen was coach. He brought in a punter who he thought would be one of the best the school ever saw.
His name was Mike Vanderjagt, and he became one of the best place-kickers the Mountaineers ever produced, going on to a long NFL career.
At that same time he brought in a place-kicker who he thought would make them forget Paul Woodside. Seeing as you still remember Woodside and that he holds the record for career field goals made in a season and a career, that didn’t work.
Instead, Todd Sauerbrun became college football’s greatest punter, complete with a 90-yard punt against Nebraska and average of 48.6 for the 1994 season.
Now I don’t want to alarm you, but right now another punter who looked like he would never become the WVU regular is averaging 49.2 yards a punt – more than Sauerbrun – after the opener.
That punter is Greg Pugnetti, who stuck around as a backup punter for four full seasons backing up first Pat McAfee and then Scott Kozlowski before finally getting his chance.
Now one may wonder why one would be so determined and stick with football here rather than move on to somewhere where he could punt, Pugnetti gives you a very simple answer.
“I came here to play. I don’t want to quit, because I’m not a quitter. I put in my time and tried to prepare myself every year like I was going to play. If it happened, it happened,” he said.
Not that even this year was guaranteed. See, a year ago WVU brought in a punter/place-kicker from a pretty fair program — Alabama — as a transfer, and after sitting out a year it was thought that he would inherit both jobs.
His name was Corey Smith out of Musselman High as a prep, and it was obvious he was a good one. If Pugnetti would make his four years of waiting worth it, he would have to beat him out in head-to-head competition in the summer.
Pugnetti answered that challenge.
“It was good they brought him in for competition, but I wasn’t going to let my spot go easily. I just kept it going,” he said.
The competition was among the fiercest in camp, but Pugnetti prevailed with Smith becoming the kickoff specialist.
Certainly, Pugnetti improved over the punter who had been tied to the bench over the past few seasons.
“I definitely improved on the roll punt. I used to do the traditional punt, but since we roll here I wanted to make sure I got it down,” he said.
When West Virginia began using the roll punt a number of years back it was something of an oddity. The punter would take the ball, roll to his right and kick it on the run rugby style. It would go end over end, probably no more than 30 yards, but because of the end-over-end motion it would hit and roll forward, often leaving a return man no chance to return it.
McAfee — himself right out of the WVU mold of not knowing what to do with kickers as he came in as a place-kicker and wound up a dual kicker – refined the art of the roll punt, turning it into something half traditional, getting hang time out of it, yet doing it while moving away from the pocket. He averaged 44.7 yards a punt in 2008, second only to Sauerbrun, before going on to punt for the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl.
“McAfee turned it into a bomb,” Pugnetti said. “That’s what it turned into.”
Pugnetti admitted that after all those years waiting, he had a case of nerves when he first stepped onto the field against Coastal Carolina, and that first punt was nothing to remember, getting him just 34 yards.
Pugnetti wasn’t about to let that ruin his year, even with Smith sitting over on the sideline eager to get back into the competition.
“I just let it go and got to the next punt,” Pugnetti said. “I don’t want to dwell on it too long and let it hurt the next punt. I make the corrections and go to the next punt.”
And that’s when they started booming off his foot, one punt just before halftime traveling 71 yards, the longest punt since McAfee hit one 75 yards against Rutgers in 2006.
What made Pugnetti’s punt even more spectacular, however, was that it rolled dead at the goal line, one of two punts on the day that pinned Coastal Carolina back at its own 1.
Lucky? Or good?
“It was probably a combination of both,” he said of the 71-yard punt. “I know the balls felt good off my foot. Whenever you get a forward roll, it’s always lucky. I won’t take credit for that.”
He’d better take credit for it, because he got the blame for that 34-yard punt to start the year.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
