Blue White Illustrated

P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> Barkley and Gesicki, the offense will take a small step back. Wisky, Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State – I think we split those and lose one we are not supposed to. psugo 9-3: Too many new parts (tight end, safety, middle linebacker, defensive tackle and kicker). Our offensive and de- fensive lines will be good, but not elite (rewatch last year's Ohio State and Michigan State games... yikes). Plus, no Saquon creating touchdowns out of nothing. PSUPALY 11-1: Only because most teams stumble somewhere during the season. We lost quite a few starters, but the players re- turning have played a lot of football. Plus, I think guys like Micah Parsons, Ellis Brooks, Ricky Slade and Justin Shorter will have a major impact. doublehaul 9-3: Very tough schedule, and PSU is losing too much on defense. gorki11 12-0: Just like last year, we will score on everyone, and our defense does not have to be great, just good, and we are in the playoff. psu_et_vt 10-2: I can only recall Penn State beat- ing Michigan two or three times at the Big House, and one of those was 24 years ago. Even in years when they have been down, they usually find a way to win on their home turf against us. Ohio State and Wisky – their defenses will be able to contain our less-explosive offense in 2018. One of them is going to end our home field winning streak. DSCP 9-3: We lose one we're not supposed to. I am picking Sept. 21, Friday night at Illi- nois. It comes down to special teams. Then we lose a heartbreaker to Ohio State the following week. Two losses in a row. The board suffers a meltdown. It's a long two weeks (due to the bye) before we whip Sparty. Payback for last year. We lose to Michigan but hand Wisky their only loss. 9-3 and the Outback Bowl. Cosmos 8-4: I think we are better than our record will show, but a brutal schedule with a young team will equal a few close losses. On defense, we lost every starter up the middle at all three levels, and while the talent is there, much of it is extremely young and unproven. Teams will pound it up the middle trying to wear down a po- tentially thin D-line (and keep the ball out of our offense's hands). Offensively, we will still put up points, but we cannot un- derestimate the losses of Barkley and Gesicki. It doesn't matter how talented Sanders may be – the attention Barkley commanded opened up all kinds of space for McSorley to run and our receivers to get open under consistently soft coverage from opposing defenses. sean43215 10-2: If the defense can develop quicker than anticipated, I can see 11-1. If they struggle to develop and have injury is- sues, I can see 9-3 or even 8-4. I'm set- tling on 10-2 because I feel our QB will win a few close games for us. Definitely should be an interesting season, and the coaches will earn their pay trying to de- velop all this young talent. cpn1sgm 10-2: Even though I think we will beat Ohio State at home, the lack of run stop- pers on the defensive line and at line- backer (lack of experience in the middle) concerns me when we play both Wis- consin and Michigan State. I see us los- ing one of the those two games. Both of these teams can exercise ball-control and keep our offense of the field. Our new linebacker corps and DT rotation will have some growing pains early but will get better as the season progresses. The most important result of this 2018 season is the development of the defen- sive line and the linebacker corps, which makes us national championship con- tenders for 2019, along with Tommy Stevens coming back for his fifth year. The new redshirt rule allows players such as Pat Freiermuth and Jesse Luketa to get valuable experience in the non- conference games and a bowl game. I see only Juwan Johnson, John Reid and Ryan Bates coming out early for the draft, which gives us a very strong returning nucleus for 2019. hohmadw

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