There are some obvious question marks facing Penn State this season. Can the Nittany Lions find success under new quarterback Drew Allar or Beau Pribula? Can this team replace a handful of longtime leaders with newer and younger faces? How will Penn State handle an early season ranking? The good news for the Nittany Lions and head coach James Franklin is that aside from many of the big picture questions every team faces this time of year, there aren’t too many others to worry about.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday during his Big Ten Media Days appearance, Franklin unpacked three key personnel questions he still has heading into the start of fall camp in just over a week.
“When you talk about question marks leading into the season, to me every year when we come to this, that’s kind of how I look at our season, is based on question marks. I think we probably have less question marks this year than we have in previous seasons,” Franklin said. “Last year coming into the season I felt like we had better depth than we had probably since COVID. We’re back to a more healthy roster than we’re used to. And now I think we’re in a position to give us the best chance to compete in our conference as well as nationally. Just less question marks across the board.
“Obviously the one question mark we have is in the secondary. When you lose a guy like Joey Porter and you lose a guy like [Ji’Ayir Brown], who are tremendous players for us, that’s probably the one area of question marks. But we played a ton of players in the secondary with experience, talent and depth. So I think we’re going to be in a good position there.”
The good news for Penn State here is that the return of longtime safety and State College native Keaton Ellis should give the safety group some stability, while Kalen King and Johnny Dixon should provide one of the better cornerback duos in the conference if not the nation. Nevertheless, losing the likes of Porter and Brown to the NFL won’t be a net positive for a Penn State defense that looks to be the backbone of the Nittany Lions’ success yet again.
“Wide receiver, just like the secondary, is a question mark,” Franklin continued on. “Trying to figure out who our third wide receiver is going to be in that rotation, but I think we’ve got a number of young people will step up and compete for that job.”
Here Penn State won’t be short on options. Incoming Kent State transfer Dante Cephas and KeAndre Lambert-Smith ought to give the Nittany Lions a viable 1-2 punch if both can maintain a high level of consistency. Beyond that, the door is open to a whole bunch of options including Trey Wallace, Kaden Saunders, Omari Evans and more. For Franklin and new receivers’ coach Marques Hagans, the schedule allows for some time to figure things out, but the Nittany Lions won’t want to wait too long to sort out a key piece of the offensive puzzle.
“Then specialists, we have some competition going on there with some three departures in our kicker, punter and snapper positions,” Franklin concluded. “So there’s some question marks there as well that we’ve got to get resolved.”
Special teams might be one of the more overlooked questions Penn State faces this season. After a half decade of elite punting and kicking, there is no well established punter, kicker or field goals specialist on this roster that the Nittany Lions can build around with great confidence as it stands today. This almost certainly keeps special teams coordinator Stacey Collins up at night and will do the same for Franklin if these units can’t flip the field and pick up crucial points in key situations. On paper, Alex Bacchetta brings the more impressive resume to the table at the punter position while Sander Sahaydak and Alex Felkins will battle things out on the kicking front. The fact these answers aren’t obvious isn’t a bad thing in late July, but they’ll be a huge issue if they’re still an issue in late September.
