It’s difficult to come out of a media day like Penn State football’s on Saturday and boil it all down. But here we go.
Let’s look at some of the absolute best bets and certainties for Penn State in 2024 that came out of countless interviews with players and coaches — like who will kick field goals, return punts and return kickoffs? Or, who is the best leader, what is the best position group and who is the most improved player? And what was the best solid hedging of bets on how Julian Fleming is really doing?
Here goes…
1. O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
Team captains in 2024? Bet the house on these three guys: linebacker Dom DeLuca (a co-captain in 2023), D-tackle Dvon J-Thomas and center Nick Dawkins. Also give strong consideration to safeties Jaylen Reed and K.J. Winston, linebacker Kobe King, quarterbacks Beau Pribula and Drew Allar, D-end Dani Dennis-Sutton and wide receivers Fleming and Liam Clifford.
Offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, who has been a college football coach since 2004, says that Dawkins is a unicorn: “I will say this about Nick Dawkins: He is one of a kind. I have coached long enough to know when you are interacting with a special person that’s in their early 20s or late teens, and he is a special one. His maturity, his authenticity — it just screams when you interact with him.”
“I tell our staff we can never take for granted the kind of leader and person Nick is because he is rare,” Coach K added. “And because of that, you anticipate a guy like that being successful. He has those characteristics.”
(My 2 cents: Kotelnicki is exactly right. This fall will be my 25th year teaching at Penn State, and I’ll be hitting the 5,000-student mark soon. I know quality. Nick is a former student of mine, who sat front row and center, in a class of over 120 students. If there was such a thing as Class Captain, it would have been Dawk.)
2. SOLID PRAISE
Solid.
Solid.
Solid.
Head coach James Franklin used that word three times on Saturday to describe Julian Fleming, the fifth-year transfer wide receiver from Ohio State who was a five-star high school star. Not a ringing endorsement of Fleming, who caught 79 passes for 963 yards and seven TDs as a Buckeye, and has been with Penn State through winter workouts, spring practice, summer workouts and OTAs with the coaches. That’s a pretty long look, despite what Franklin says.
Franklin, when asked about Fleming and also the WR group: “So, um, I would say, I’d say, solid, you know. He’s been solid. He’s been…I think they have all been good at times. It’s still obviously a small number of practices and number of plays to truly evaluate.
“I thought our entire staff, as well as team, felt like the wide receivers took a big jump in Day Two compared to Day One. And I know a lot of the coaches and players — Jaylen Reed actually spoke to the team after practice about it. So, I thought that was a real positive. But it’s just kind of a small pool right now to really base that off of. I’ll have a better idea a week from now. But so far, solid, and obviously there’s still some steps that need to be taken there for that entire room.”
3. ISN’T THAT SPECIAL?
Let’s get special: Penn State’s best place-kicker? Sander Sahaydak. (He also may be the team’s best golfer…but that’s literally another story for another day.) “In terms of just pure talent of kicking the ball, he’s impressive,” Franklin said. “I mean, he’s very, very impressive.”
But, who is likely to be the starting place-kicker? I think Chase Meyer, who was just named to the Lou Groza Watch List. Here’s why: Both Franklin and special teams coordinator Justin Lustig said on Saturday that game experience matters. A lot.
Franklin on the starter: “I don’t care what position it is, sometimes there’s a difference between practice and games. So, the game reps carry a lot of weight for us. I think if it’s close between two guys, at the end of training camp and we are talking about naming a starter, you probably give the edge to the guy that has game experience to go with [rather than] someone that has no game experience.”
Meyer has two years of in-game college kicking under his toe: At Penn in 2022, he had 36 kickoffs. At Tulsa in 2023, Meyer made 17 of 20 field goal attempts, including his first 10 of the year, and a career-long 47 yards. He was 30-of-31 on PATs He made third-team All-AAC.
Sahayak began 2023 as Penn State’s No. 1 place-kicker, but in the season opener at home against West Virginia, he missed field goal tries from 38 and 34 yards. He was yanked in favor of Alex Felkins, who remained the No. 1 kicker the entire year, making 19 of 24 field attempts and all 47 of his PATs. Felkins graduated. As Sahayak enters his fourth season at Penn State, he has made just one field goal in his college career, from 20 yards out vs. Rutgers in 2022.
The No. 1 punt returner is clear-cut: redshirt sophomore Kaden Saunders. Last year, he began the season as the primary punt returner, and finished with 14 returns with an average of 6.1 yards. Daequan Hardy missed the first few games, but when he returned he took over as PR1 — in a big way, with an average of 14.6 yards on 17 returns and two returns for a TD vs. UMass.
With Hardy gone, the job is back in Saunders’ steady hands.
“I would say Kaden Saunders right now is the clear leader in the clubhouse,” Lustig said. “We showed the team and staff the other day that there were 199 muffed punts in college football last year, so it starts with catching the football. It starts with having a range and not allowing the ball to bounce down the field. Kaden gives us both of those. I don’t mean to discredit his playmaking ability, but he is solid as can be in those first two areas — so he’s in clear leader right now.”
The No. 1 kickoff returner will be Nick Singleton. Again, for the third year. Singleton has returned 27 kickoffs for 662 yards at Penn State, averaging 24.5 yards per return with a long of 100 yards on a TD at Rutgers in 2022. Singleton has 2,782 career all-purpose yards— 1,813 rushing, 307 receiving and 662 in returns. If Singleton gets 1,450 all-purpose yards in 2024 (I’ll definitely take the over) he would vault to No. 6 on the Nittany Lions’ all-time career chart.
4. SAFETY DANCE
New defensive coordinator Tom Allen didn’t pull any punches while praising the safety troika of Reed (senior), Winston (junior) and redshirt junior Zakee Wheatley. “That’s as good a group of safeties that you’re going to find in the country,” said Allen.
5. CORNERING THE MARKET
Franklin, likewise, was effusive in his praise of OG CB coach Terry Smith — who lost Hardy and Kalen King to the NFL, as well as starter Johnny Dixon. Franklin also likes the plethora of candidates competing for a starting role: junior Cam Miller and transfers Jalen Kimber (Florida, Georgia), A.J. Harris (Georgia) and Audavion Collins (Mississippi State).
Franklin on Smith, who is also associate head coach and heads defensive recruiting: “Terry is the model. Terry is the model in terms of recruiting and then in terms of development.”
Franklin on the cornerbacks: “You would say, typically, when you have a year where you essentially lost two corners to the NFL, that you would feel like that was a big question mark going into the season and feel like that was an area where maybe you had some concerns. But we actually feel like that position from top to bottom could be better this year athletically.”
Franklin on Collins: “Maybe most improved guy on our roster since the end of the season.
Allen also weighed in on Collins: “Audavion Collins was the guy who sticks out to me that has had a great offseason and a really good spring. I expect him to do great things for us. He’s had the right mindset since I’ve been here.”
6. LIKE COACH K DREW IT UP
Expect the unexpected from Allar this season. That’s what Franklin said on Saturday, dropping a hint of interesting proportions, unprovoked:
“Obviously, Drew has been able to lean into Danny and has been able to lean into Andy, but I also think some of the things systematically that we are going to do. I would say even some of these things we are going to do, [the media] are going to look at and say, ‘I don’t know if that’s something I would imagine Drew doing.’ But by him doing just enough of it, it opens up and creates opportunities for other things in our offense and makes us difficult to defend.”
