Why isn't Penn State kicker Gabe Nwosu just booming touchbacks to start the year? Justin Lustig explains

Gabe Nwosu stands six feet six inches tall. He tips the scales at 297 pounds. All it takes is one look at the redshirt senior from Derwood, Md., to realize that he might be able to kick a football pretty far. And, as we’ve seen both last year and certainly more this fall, he can.

The Bullis School alum is now the Nittany Lions’ starting punter in addition to being the team’s kickoff specialist for the last three and a half years. Taking his half year as a starter in that role in 2022 out of account, Nwosu averaged a 63.6 percent touchback rate in 2023 and 63.5 a year ago. Through three games in 2025, CFBStats tracks him at a similar 63.3 percent. However, as many fans have noticed, there has often seemed to be a concerted effort not to have Nwosu kick it deep. Instead, he has booted some to the corners of the field, but short of the end zone, while others have been intentionally kicked higher so that they do not go that far.

Why?

As you can probably imagine, Penn State spent its 3-0 non-conference start working on different things all over the field while also putting a lot on tape for opposing coaches to think about. And, that’s the simplest answer to the question posed above.

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“We’ve asked him to do a lot through the first three games in terms of directional kickoff,” Lions special teams coordinator Justin Lustig said on Wednesday. “We want to be super aggressive on special teams. And, we don’t want to have people be able to dial into what we’re doing. We certainly could put the ball on the hash and just hope for touchbacks and just kick it in one direction the entire time. Which, there may be some game plans that we do that. But we also want to keep people on their heels a little bit that we could kick it opposite. [That] we can kick in these different directions. That changes the angles for the blockers. It changes the scheme for the coach, for the opponent, when you know that the ball could be kicked from multiple hashes in multiple directions.

“So you were really doing it for two things. One, again, is to keep the opponent on their heels a little bit. And then, also, it’s a scheme thing that makes it a little bit difficult for the opponent to block on kickoff return when the ball is going all over the place.”

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In other words, when Penn State wants or needs a touchback, it feels good knowing it will be able to get one. But, if it wants to try something more precise, for whatever reason, it wants Nwosu to be prepared to do that, too. So, that explains what you’ve seen in the kickoff department over the first few weeks.

As for Nwosu as a kicker, Lustig left the door open for him to try some deep field goals at some point this year.

“The one example we talked about is the end of USC last year,” Lustig said. “It would have been a 65, 66-yard field goal; we weren’t comfortable with Gabe doing that last year. This year, it could be a different decision. It’s not a high percentage field goal. But he has the ability to make that field goal, and close to 70 [yards] probably. It might be 40 percent to make that field goal over 10 percent for a hail mary. So that may be where you see that, in a tie or behind a point situation. He brings another tool and weapon to us that you may see. The weather makes a difference, too. A slight wind of 8 to 10 mph is going to give him five or six yards in distance.

“I’m just really pleased with where he’s at and has a ton of room to grow. He’s just going to get better.”