Two left feet?

For all the glory of touchdown passes and dramatic interceptions, perhaps the most common way of scoring in football games is often also the most ignored.

That is, until something in the kicking game goes awry -- something which it did last year for the Penn football team, to the tune of only seven made field goal in 20 attempts, and four missed extra points in 29 attempts.

Penn football coach Al Bagnoli called it "foreign territory" for a team that has had a number of first-team all-Ivy kickers in recent years.

Sophomore Derek Zoch would like to plead his case, however. This year's starting kicker, who was 2-of-5 on field goals and 6-of-7 on extra points last season, said that his job is not as easy as it might seem from the bleachers.

"Extra points are not 'gimmes,'" he said. "It's the same thing with a field goal, everything's out there."

Indeed, he argued, extra points are not supposed to be automatic.

"If if was that easy, they wouldn't have it," he said of extra points in particular. "They'd just say that a touchdown is worth seven points and walk off the field."

Still, Bagnoli expects improvement from the kicking game this season.

"I don't think it's unrealistic that we should be hitting 95 to 100 percent of extra points," he said.

This does not mean it is always the kicker's fault when the ball sails wide right, or left, or off a blocker's hand.

"The kicker always gets the brunt of the criticism," Bagnoli said. "But it could be the holder, it could be the protection, and it could be the snapper, and they've all got to work in unison."

Zoch emphasized the holder's role in the snap-hold-kick routine.

"You leave to go kick that ball as [the holder is] touching it," Zoch said. "So you're standing there, the snap goes and you're already on your way. You've got to put all your trust in the holder that the ball is going to be there."

That trust becomes established over plenty of field goal practice sessions, according to Bagnoli.

"It's practiced both in individual sessions, it's practiced in team, it's practiced under live" situations, Bagnoli said. "It's practiced under all different hash [marks] -- middle, it's practiced up close, it's practiced back, it's practiced with no timeouts left."

Zoch's lack of experience has made that practice all the more important. His backup, Braden Lepisto, is also a sophomore, but Bagnoli is not worried about that.

"We have two guys who are both young kids, so there are going to be growing pains with them," Bagnoli said. "But they are pretty talented, so hopefully, we can get things resolved."

Punts will also be handled by a sophomore, Anthony Melillo. If Zoch had big shoes to fill by following 2004 graduate Peter Veldman, Melillo has perhaps a bigger challenge -- succeeding 2005 graduate -- and first team all-Ivy League punter Josh Appell, whom Bagnoli described as one of Penn's "all-time best punters."

Last season, Appell punted the ball 56 times for an average of 40.9 yards per punt, and was blocked only once. Seventeen of those punts landed inside the opponent's 20-yard line.

In 2004, Appell punted the ball 53 times, of which four punts traveled 50 yards or more. He was named Ivy League Special Teams Player of the Week after punting the ball five times for a combined 207 yards against Columbia. Against Harvard, Appell punted the ball a season-high eight times in a 44-9 loss to the Crimson.

Bagnoli thinks Melillo has the potential to be just as good over the next few years as Appell was.

"I don't expect Anthony Melillo as a sophomore to be Josh Appell as a senior," Bagnoli said. "I think Anthony Melillo as a sophomore can be Josh Appell as a sophomore -- they both have that kind of ability; they both have that kind of leg."

For potential or otherwise, Penn's special teams will certainly not be ignored this season.

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