Part three of our five part series takes a look at junior punter Travis Baltz.

Junior P Travis Baltz (6-foot-2, 200 pounds)

The Terps are going to be very young and inexperienced on defense, especially early in the season. After all, they only return four players who made a combined 10 starts on the defensive line

They also have a different defensive coordinator with a different scheme that promises to take more chances and be aggressive. They will need all the help they can get; which includes sustained drives from the offense, capitalization on turnovers, and field position.

That is where Baltz comes in.

As a sophomore last season, Baltz was first team All-ACC as he led the conference in punting with a 41.1 average per punt. In addition to the consistency, Baltz showed off a big leg, and the accuracy to pin opposing offenses deep. Ten of his punts traveled farther than 50 yards, but he also dropped 24 out of 61 punts inside the opponents 20-yard line.

Those type of numbers make Baltz more than just a punter, he is a legitimate weapon. If he can improve on those numbers, opposing offenses will have longer fields, and the defense could get a chance to make plays in the opponents red zone. Coach Ralph Friedgen is hoping for big things from his offense, but he would surely welcome points from the defense as well.

But the most important thing he needs to do is remain consistent. He can pin the opponent deep 49 out of 50 times, but it will could be that one shank that will leave an inexperienced defense with a short field.

And that is where the trouble starts.

Michael Lemaire is a staff writer for The Diamondback. He can be reached at lemairedbk@gmail.com.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.