There’s nothing that serves as much of an equalizer in football as special teams.

While the big-money schools can recruit high-end talent on both offense and defense to dominate almost all phases of the game, they can always be undone by special teams, the soft underbelly of any big college team.

Year after year, we see how a team’s poor special teams play can unravel its season when the margins are the tightest.

Ohio State fans probably still wince every time they see a kicker attempt a field goal from any range; Michigan fans will never forget the words “Oh, he has trouble with the snap“; and Alabama fans continue to curse the name of Chris Davis to this day.

Lest we forget, the biggest play in modern Penn State history was also on special teams. Let’s all watch and reminisce, shall we?

Penn State already boasts one of the nation’s most accurate and consistent kickers in Ryan Barker, but a new spot in the special teams unit could quickly become an advantage: punt returning.

Redshirt freshman Zay Robinson has made an impact in his first three games as a Nittany Lion after being a little-used freshman at Iowa State last year. By following head coach Matt Campbell and a small army of teammates and coaches from Ames, Iowa to State College, Pennsylvania, Robinson has become the team’s primary punt returner and has excelled so far.

Entering Big Ten play this week against Wisconsin, Robinson has returned 13 punts for 172 total yards, but his magnum opus was against Buffalo, where he became the first Nittany Lion to log 100-plus punt return yards since Daequan Hardy did it in 2023 against UMass.

Good punt returning requires good downfield blocking, which Penn State has had in spades, giving Robinson plenty of space to operate, but he’s also been incredibly shifty in how he evades tackles and uses the entire field to his advantage.

It’s early, but where does Robinson stack up with recent Penn State punt returners?

Devonte Ross & Trebor Pena (2025)

The Nittany Lions elected to have two of their portal acquisitions at receiver split the punt return duties in 2025, with neither of them producing anything of note.

Devonte Ross started the season returning punts in non-conference play, logging 75 yards across six returns against Villanova and FIU, a solid total. His longest return was 34 yards in the fourth quarter of the blowout win against the Wildcats.

Trebor Pena took over punt return duties during the last few games after James Franklin’s firing, making a 16-yard return against Indiana and a 21-yard return against Nebraska.

The trend with these two? They were content to just wave their arms and take a fair catch.

Out of the 47 times Penn State forced a punt in 2025, only 20 were returned—just 42.5%. Compare that to Robinson so far, who’s returned 13-of-22 punts so far, or 59.1%.

Zion Tracy (2024)

Out of the 23 punts Penn State returned in 16 games in 2024, 15 were by then-sophomore cornerback Zion Tracy. Tracy is still one of the defense’s top weapons in the secondary.

Once again, we have the issue of not returning many punts, with the Nittany Lions forcing 73 on the season for a paltry 31.5% return rate.

It’s one thing if you’re just being selective, but Tracy averaged under 6 yards per punt return, maxing out at just 14 for his season-best in the same game he had an incredible pick-six at Beaver Stadium against Ohio State.

That was a very good Penn State team, but returning punts was among their weaknesses.

Daequan Hardy (2023)

Though it lasted only a few games, it was a treat to watch senior cornerback Daequan Hardy field a punt back in a transitional 2023 season.

Kaden Saunders, a four-star sophomore receiver with a lot invested in him, started the year returning punts, but lost his job when Hardy returned a pair of punts to the house in a 63-0 demolition of UMass in October.

To date, Hardy’s scores are still the most recent punt return touchdowns for the Nittany Lions.

6⃣8⃣ days until Penn State football!

Daequan Hardy returns it 68 yards to the house for his 2nd punt return touchdown of the game vs UMass in 2024!#WeAre #PennState #NittanyLions #CollegeFootball #BeaverStadium pic.twitter.com/xqkwBXOqPq

— Basic Blues Nation (@basicblues) June 29, 2026

Even this speedster was relatively quiet for the rest of the season, however. He’d have a 15-yard return against Ohio State the next week, but wouldn’t get another 20-plus-yard return until Black Friday against Michigan State.

Still, off his two touchdowns, he led the Big Ten in yards per punt return with 14.6, but the issue was once again the level of aggressiveness. The Nittany Lions only returned 38.5% of forced punts this season.

Parker Washington (2022)

It’s sort of bold to put your top receiver at punt returner, but that’s what the Nittany Lions did with their spectacular receiver, Parker Washington, who returned only 18 punts for 99 yards in a very ho-hum season.

Washington’s longest return of the season was 30 yards against Ohio in September, and once again, the team’s return rate was just 40%.

It was not a year when Penn State prioritized this part of the game.

Jahan Dotson (2020-21)

The last multi-year punt returner for the Nittany Lions was Jahan Dotson, who flashed tremendous speed and agility as the team’s highest-drafted receiver since Kenny Jackson in 1984.

In his collegiate career, Dotson returned 25 punts for 338 yards and a touchdown. He was remarkably consistent in his work, returning a punt 30 yards against Maryland in 2019 before making multiple highlight-reel returns in the shortened 2020 season.

He had a 21-yard return against Nebraska, a 50-yard return against Illinois, and an 82-yard house call against Michigan State to cap it all off. The following season, he returned 14 punts for 104 total yards, showing consistency, but not breaking off any truly great runs.

JAHAN DOTSON 81-YARD PUNT RETURN @H55ZY#WeAre pic.twitter.com/npMlFMdpNg

— Penn State Football (@PennStateFball) December 12, 2020

Once again, in what seemed to be a trend under Franklin, he was capped by a general avoidance of returning punts. In 2020 and 2021, the Nittany Lions forced 130 punts and returned just 25, a ridiculously low 19.2% return rate.

Dotson is the gold standard for Robinson to follow; the question is whether the new coaching staff will give him the freedom to show off that gift more often.