June 3, 2008
NORMAL, Ill. -
Illinois State head football coach Denver Johnson announced that sophomore punter Kyle Cinzio (sin-ZEE-oh) has been added to the Redbird roster after transferring from Rutgers.
"Coach (Jared) Hooker and Kyle had crossed paths at a kicking camp, and had positive things to report," said Johnson. "He had a really good high school career before moving on to Rutgers. He was just looking for a new opportunity, and we are looking to create competition and upgrade our kicking game. We feel like Kyle adds to that."
The 6-foot-3, 200-pound punter did not see any game action with the Scarlet Knights, but served as the backup place-kicker to Jeremy Ito.
The Newtown, Pa., native attended Council Rock North High School. Cinzio participated in numerous kicking and punting camps, including the Northeast Kicking Competition, held at Rutgers in 2005, where he placed first overall in the punting category. He also competed at the Chris Sailer Kicking Combine in Las Vegas and the Scout.com Kicking and Punting Combine at Miami (Fla.).
Cinzio was a two-year starter at place-kicker and connected on 14-of-26 field-goal attempts in his high school career. He posted a 39.5 career punting average with a career long of 58 yards. He was named second-team Associated Press All-State and was a first-team All-Suburban One National Conference selection as a place-kicker and punter.
Cinzio is already enrolled in summer-school classes at Illinois State and will compete with Bobby Kelsey, Kevin Mazur and Levi Dyer for ISU's punting duties in the fall.
