James Franklin traditionally hates this question, or the idea of it. So if you ever get the chance, don’t ask him who has stood out to him so far this season or this spring or this training camp. It’s not that Franklin doesn’t know, but for a coach managing an entire roster of players, it’s easy to forget someone off the top of your head. And once you forget someone, that someone will let him know about it.
“I always struggle with this because when I do it, and I miss a guy, then somebody’s upset or somebody’s parents are upset,” Franklin says half laughing, half serious. Nevertheless, he relents. “I’m going to answer your question. I don’t love the question, but I’m going to answer.”
He takes a deep breath.
“Guys that stood out – I’m just going to kind of go through my mind with this. Ji’Ayir Brown, he led the nation in interceptions last year; I thought he built on it this spring and this winter in workouts. I really feel like we got three other safeties that really flashed at times,” Franklin said. “I’ve said this before, to the people that come every single week. At a lot of positions, I’m not ready to say we’re as talented with the starters that we’ve ever been, but we have positions where our depth is as good as it’s been where the drop off is not as significant to the number twos and number threes.”
That has always been the biggest challenge for Penn State over the years it has spent recovering from the NCAA sanctions – depth. It’s not that hard to accumulate talented players at the first level of an defense or offense. Fast receivers are a dime and doze, but finding two or three and keeping them all on your roster? That’s a challenge. Penn State might have starters as good as Ohio State’s, but what about backups? What about the backup’s, backup?
It’s something that Penn State is struggling with on its offensive front, limited options and limited healthy ones at that. College football roster management is about keeping talent for later, but you also have to find it first. But back to Franklin.
“At corner, Kalen King, I think really stood out this spring. At linebacker, I would say the move of Jon Sutherland to the field backer, it’s been very obvious to everybody that was the right thing for us to do and that was the right thing for Jon to do. I think he’s got a chance to have a big year.”
It will be interesting to see how Sutherland’s move to linebacker helps Penn State. In 2021-22 the Nittany Lions moving Jesse Luketa to an alternating role between linebacker and defensive end resulted in great improvements in Luketa’ performance and greatly benefited Penn State’s defense as a whole. Sutherland might not stand to make quite the same sort of leap simply judging by his physical skillset, but another positional change later in a players’ career could once again pay dividends.
“Defensive line, just having Adisa [Issac] back, you guys know we felt like he had a chance to be a really special player this last year, so having him back it’s great to see that athleticism coming off the edge. I would say the same thing at D-tackle that I said at safety, we have more depth at the tackle without a significant drop off than we’ve had in the past.”
Issac’s return to action after missing all of last season ought to be a big boost for Penn State this year if he’s able to return healthy and stay healthy. The Nittany Lions are also awaiting the full recovery of tackle PJ Mustipher, although it remains to be seen if he will be fully recovered by the time the season begins. In any case, Penn State certainly seems ready for another solid year in the trenches with or without that duo, but anytime you have to rely in no small part on players returning from injury, the risk is always there.
“I would say at right tackle and center and left tackle with Caeden [Wallace], Sal [Wormley] and Olu
[Fashanu], I think those three guys played really well and took a ton of reps this spring. We are going to
have a good competition at guard, we will still have competition at those positions, but we will have really good competition guard, see how that plays out. Getting Sal Wormley back from injury that we lost last year is valuable.”
Penn State’s offensive line woes are well documented at this point, and the ability to sustain a running game while also protecting Sean Clifford will be paramount to Penn State’s success in 2022. Is this the year it all comes together? Time will tell.
“We’ve got as good of a tight end room, I think, as anywhere in the country. Our depth there is good. Then wide out with Parker [Washington] and KeAndre [Lambert-Smith] back. I thought Mitchell Tinsley came in and did some good things that you’d expect out of a veteran wide out and then again at
wide out, I think we have a chance to have a legitimate two-deep that we probably haven’t had.”
“At quarterback Sean’s [Clifford] had his best spring. [Christian] Veilleux was able to build on the success that he had in the Rutgers game. Sean and Veilleux both had good springs and the two young guys really flashed some potential.”
Potential was maybe the best word to describe Penn State following Saturday’s practice. The Nittany Lions have talent, they have pieces to a large and complicated puzzle, but only the actual games will determine how much that potential turns into winning. In many ways, the Nittany Lions are in a transition year, so it’s hard to know what to make of them just yet.
But if nothing else, the fact Franklin had something good to say about so many positions isn’t a bad sign.
