Illinois coach Ron Zook has knocked a lot of issues off his “to-do” list this season, and the Illini’s 5-1 overall record and 3-0 start in the Big Ten is evidence of that.
But one that’s still out there is the vexing issue of punting. Kicking the ball to the opponent has been a bit of an adventure the last couple of seasons, and Zook is still in search of an answer with some sort of permanence.
Asked this week if he’s sticking with Anthony Santella as his starting punter, Zook spoke loudly, if briefly.
“Right now, yes,” he said.
Santella, a walk-on redshirt freshman from Wauconda, is last in the Big Ten with a 35.6-yard average.
He had a punt partially blocked against Wisconsin last week and he has shanked a few.
“Mediocre at best,” Santella said of his performance. “I could be doing better, but as long as we’re winning, it’s going good.”
As rocky as the season has been, his punting hasn’t cost the Illini a game and it helped them beat Indiana in their Big Ten opener Sept. 22. He averaged 41 yards with kicks of 59 and 53 yards and two downed inside the 20.
Santella won a close battle for the punting job with incumbent Kyle Yelton, a scholarship sophomore who averaged 37.4 yards last season, and Jared Bosch, a sophomore walk-on.
Santella didn’t know he would start the opener against Missouri until the morning of the game. Even then, fearing a strong Missouri rush in the second half, Zook switched to Yelton for one punt. Yelton got off a 39-yarder that was returned 66 yards for a touchdown in a 40-34 loss, and the job has been Santella’s ever since.
But the competition goes on in practice.
“The block point, time, getting the ball off, is a consistency thing,” Zook said. “It happens with guys who don’t have a lot of experience. That has been the problem with the punting game, the consistency part of it. Who’s going to be the consistent guy today? But Anthony had a good [practice Monday].”
A little uncertainty as to his status is nothing new for Santella, who has taken a circuitous route from high school star at Wauconda to Champaign.
Wauconda coach Glen Kozlowski helped Santella get a shot at Utah under head coach Kyle Whittingham, who was a teammate of the former Bears receiver at Brigham Young in the 1980s. Kozlowski said Santella turned down a scholarship offer from Division I-AA Arkansas State in hopes of playing at a higher level.
Santella redshirted as a walk-on in hopes of moving up to scholarship status. But he found the punting situation was being handled very well by Louie Sakoda.
The thin mountain air helps the kicking game, and Sakoda was 13th in the nation with a 44-yard average as Utah led the nation with a net punting average of 41.6 in ’06. Sakoda is now a junior, so Santella likely would have had to wait two more years for a chance to be the starter.
So, it was time to look for Santella to look for schools again. Plus, he missed the Midwest.
“I didn’t feel at home out west,” he said. “I didn’t feel it was my place. Illinois had shown some interest, and I figured what better place, and I could help my home state win.”
Santella, a former soccer player, took up football after Kozlowski recruited older brother Brian off the soccer team to kick.
Anthony Santella played soccer, too, but his history of injures — two surgeries on each knee — affects him less while punting than playing soccer.
In 2006, the Illini struggled so much they resorted to rugby style kicks at one point. So Zook paid attention when Santella sent up signals about transferring as a walk-on.
Now, Kozlowski just hopes Illinois continues to be patient with Santella as he adjusts to the aggressive punt-blocking efforts at the Big Ten level.
“He has all the physical skills to kick in the NFL,” Kozlowski said. “Now, it’s maturing and understanding what he’s doing, facing these new situations.”
Kicking themselves
The Illini rank last in the Big Ten and 111th in the nation in net punting average:
%% RK TEAM NO AVG NET
1. Georgia Tech 33 46.0 41.2
4. Penn State 27 44.6 39.9
6. Ohio State 23 42.2 39.6
42. Michigan 28 41.7 36.3
53. Purdue 31 40.1 35.7
67. Iowa 44 38.5 34.7
75. Indiana 25 37.6 34.2
87. Minnesota 30 41.9 33.1
88. Wisconsin 26 39.9 33.0
90. Northwestern 29 35.7 32.9
100. Michigan St. 29 38.2 32.1
111. Illinois 36 35.7 30.8 %%
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tabannon@tribune.com
