Blue White Illustrated

SPRING GAME SCHEDULED Next year's Blue-White Game will take place a little earlier than usual. The game typically is played on the third Saturday of April, but that date falls on Easter weekend in 2019, and rather than moving the annual spring scrim- mage back a week, Penn State has opted to move it forward. The Blue-White Game will be played Saturday, April 13, in Beaver Stadium, with kicko> tentatively scheduled for early to mid-a?ernoon. More details about the game and related events will be announced a?er the 2018 season. The Lions concluded their most re- cent spring practice on April 21, with an estimated 71,000 fans attending the Blue-White Game, the nation's fourth- largest spring football crowd this year. The game has drawn more than 50,000 fans in 10 of the past 12 years. PSU ALUMNI ON HALL BALLOT First- team All-Americans Bobby Engram, Je> Hartings and Steve Wisniewski are on the ballot for the National Football Foundation's College Hall of Fame class. A total of 76 players and six coaches from the Football Bowl Sub- division are on the 2019 ballot. The trio of standouts, who were in- strumental in helping Penn State post undefeated and championship sea- sons, have an opportunity to join 19 former Nittany Lion players and =ve Penn State coaches who have been in- ducted into the hall. Engram and Hartings are appearing on the ballot for the =rst time. Also on the Hall of Fame ballot is former Penn State player Glenn Killinger, who is among the candidates for the divisional coach Class of 2019. Killinger was in- ducted into the Hall of Fame as a player in 1966. Quarterback Kerry Collins will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in December, joining the likes of Shane Conlan, Curt Warner and Lydell Mitchell. The announcement of the 2019 class will be made Jan. 7 in Santa Clara, Calif. McGOVERN ON WATCH LIST Junior of- fensive lineman Connor McGovern has been named to the preseason watch list for the Rimington Trophy, which is presented to the nation's most outstanding center. A.Q. Shipley is Penn State's lone Rimington Trophy winner, having claimed the honor in 2008. McGovern moved from guard to center prior to the 2017 season. He was the keystone of a line the helped PSU =nish in a tie for sixth in the Football Bowl Subdivision in scoring o>ense (41.1 points per game) and 19th in total o>ense (460.3 yards per game). ■ F O O T B A L L N O T E B O O K eraser. It's not like a problem is there and they're able to make it go away. They're just changing the line of scrimmage consistently. Trace McSorley has been an eraser. A guy gets free in the backfield, Trace makes them miss, scrambles or makes a big throw down the field by keeping his eyes up, and it's a huge play. But I don't know if necessarily an O-line in my mind would fit into that category. BWI You've talked about the need to be strong up the middle defensively. But can it also work the other way around, with experienced cornerbacks and de- fensive ends serving as the strength of the defense? FRANKLIN If you can get corners to cre- ate turnovers like Amani [Oruwariye] did last year, and if you can get defensive ends to really put some heat on the quarterback, then yeah, those guys can be game wreckers and game changers. Because the reality is, if you can get that at D-tackle, awesome, but if we can just be stout at D-tackle, just be stout at D- tackle and be disruptive at D-end and be disruptive at corner, then you've got a chance to really have a damn good foot- ball team. But it may be built differently than the last couple of years of having Jason Cabinda, Marcus Allen, Troy Apke, and then the three D-tackles that we had in Tyrell Chavis, Parker Cothren and Curtis Cothran. That's a different deal. And I would probably describe Parker and Chavis and Curtis as that. They were stout guys in- side. It's not like they were the most dis- ruptive guys with huge amounts of tackles for loss, but I think we've got a chance to be really good at D-end, and I think we've got a chance to be really good at corner. So that will be interest- ing how that plays out. BWI Are you concerned about the missed reps this spring for the returning tight ends, and how does that impact that position? FRANKLIN Yeah, there's no doubt. Not only did they not get a lot of reps last year because Mike [Gesicki] was so con- sistent, but then they didn't play this spring. We've got two guys who haven't played a whole lot of football, from an injury standpoint and from being behind essentially an All-American. So, yeah. A thousand reps for Jonathan Holland, a thousand reps for Nick Bowers. It was going to be huge. Danny Dalton, it was a positive for him, he got a bunch of reps this spring and then two young, exciting players in Pat Freiermuth and Zack Kuntz who are on campus right now. So there will be a lot of competition at that position, which is exciting. And I think we have a chance to be more physical at that posi- tion. ■ Steve Manuel CONNOR McGOVERN

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